


Dominion: Reprise

by doortoriver



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Angst, Gen, I promise it gets better, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It gets dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 30
Words: 130,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27013309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doortoriver/pseuds/doortoriver
Summary: "There was an accident in Heaven, and Mr. Popo, who was usually a bastion of good sense and of even better advice, was at a complete loss for what to do..."The dragon balls are gone.All of them.And that's just the start of the multi-verse's problems.
Relationships: Bulma Briefs/Vegeta, Chi-Chi/Son Goku (Dragon Ball), Videl Satan/Son Gohan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	1. Convergence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mysterious eighth dragon ball, a disappearing Dende, and a worrying hint of illness converge at once to interfere with Gohan's happiest day. 
> 
> Also, Dende is in another world now, being followed by a weird creature he cannot see. Oh, dear.

There was an accident in Heaven, and Mr. Popo, who was usually a bastion of good sense and of even better advice, was at a complete loss for what to do. Mr. Popo loved his job, and even more so the people who administrated over him; but in all his hundreds of years as the Earth-Kami's assistant, he had never seen the eighth dragon ball before.

Of course he had suggested to Dende that they leave the strange thing alone; that such odd items, hidden away in trunks buried deep within library vaults, were obviously there for a purpose and best handled by those qualified to deal with them – such as a Kaiou, for instance, or maybe even Enma-Daiou himself. But Dende had meddled, and now, Dende was no more.

At least, that was the way it came across.

Dende – and the extra dragon ball along with him, for that matter – had disappeared completely from Kami's Tower. Exhaustive search had turned up nothing, and showed only that Dende and the ball which intrigued him were simply nowhere to be found at all.

Normally, an incident such as this would not have panicked Mr. Popo. He had, after all, been through recent events such as Buu and Cell, and seeing the earth destroyed and wished back, and before _that_ momentous occasions like the taming of the dragon Shen-lon and the creation of the dragon balls. With the Z-Fighters down below and the dragon balls to help out - why, there was hardly an occasion that Popo didn't think could be handled calmly and efficiently.

Except, perhaps, for this one.

And peeking over the edge of Kami's Tower toward the busy, busy earth far below, Mr. Popo knew that the repercussions of the day's events would shake the course of the entire world; for of course, the warriors of earth expected the dragon balls to be there to help them in their dire need. But no Dende meant no dragon balls – no means to summon Shen-lon, and no possibility of granted wishes, no matter how urgent. Heaven was at an impasse – and so, it seemed, was earth.

* * *

Deep, deep in space, a large saucer ship, very reminiscent of the style formerly used by King Cold and his offspring, hovered stationary amidst the wreckage of what used to be Planet Namek. The inhabitants of the ship – and they could only be called that, since they had no other home – smiled triumphantly at the material obtained by their search operation.

Such a small piece of evidence, really; a square of metal which had miraculously survived the explosion of the planet and been torn whole from whatever larger structure it had originally graced. It had two simple words, printed in English, on one side:

_**Capsule Corporation.** _

The seekers had found the final clue they needed. Giddy with the joy of a quest at long last completed, they pointed their vessel toward the Earth.

The gods help anybody who had been responsible for the death of the man they claimed as their King.

* * *

Piccolo, Chaou-zu, Yamucha, Tenshinhan, and Kuririn were sparring when they got the news.

"Makkankosappo!!" roared Piccolo, and the bunched group of fighters - Tenshinhan, Chaou-zu, and Yamucha - all scattered. Kuririn, however, failed to do the same. Smiling humorously, Piccolo adjusted the angle of his beam to just graze the back of Kuririn's pants.

The antagonists broke up laughing as Kuririn jumped up and down, batting helplessly at his derrier. "Too slow, little man," Piccolo chided, resuming his in-air meditation pose. Kuririn ignored him; he had resorted to trying to extinguish his gi by rolling in the dirt, and was no longer paying attention.

"Cute boxers," ribbed Yajirobe from his safe spot behind Piccolo, where he was free to watch rather than fight.

"Aw, shut up," grumbled Kuririn, embarassed, clambering to his feet. "If we'd been fighting for real, I'd have been fried!" The others chuckled resumed their fighting stances.

"No, you wouldn't," Yamucha said, sounding dryly amused. "If this had been for real, Gokuu woulda been here to save you."

"True enough," sighed Kuririn, and got back into position.

"All right, little girls," Piccolo grinned evilly. "It's for real now. HA!" He raised his hands and sent another powerful beam in the others' direction - and just then, Gokuu transported directly into its path.

"Gokuu!" shouted Piccolo, but he needn't have worried. Gokuu simply raised his left hand to block, and the powerful, spiral beam splattered and diffused harmlessly on contact.

"Ohayoo!" Gokuu cheerfully greeted them.

"Gokuu," said Piccolo, relieved and annoyed. "What do you want?"

"Ah – gomen nasai," Gokuu grinned apologetically, placing one hand behind his head and blushing. "I don't mean to interrupt you, but I've got some news." He began to bounce up and down on his toes, beaming. "I'm a grandpa!"

"You mean Videl finally had her baby?" exclaimed Kuririn. Gokuu smiled enigmatically in reply, and everybody – sans Piccolo – rushed him at once.

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"What's its name?"

"Is it healthy? What about Videl, how's she doing?"

"It's a girl, and her name's Pan," Gokuu shared cheerfully, absurdly pleased at having a new family member.

"Pan? They named her BREAD?" Chaou-zu gaped, but no one else seemed surprised.

"Yep," Gokuu agreed. "Gohan's a mess; I don't think he slept at all last night!" He grinned expansively and sighed, sticking his chest out with pride.

"Somebody call Bulma – we got to get together at the Capsule Corporation and paaaaarty!" said Yamucha.

"Did!" said Gokuu. "You know how good Chi-Chi is with arranging that kind of thing, although I really didn't want her to go to all that trouble. She hasn't been feeling well lately, and I..." For just a moment, Gokuu's face fell; a darker expression seemed to flit over it briefly, and then was gone. "Well?" he asked, buoyant once more. "What are you waiting for? Everybody's invited!" And placing two fingers against his forehead, he vanished.

"Easy for you to say," muttered Kuririn. "SOME people have to FLY."

"Hey, what's this about Chi-Chi?" asked Yamucha as they began to gather their things. "Why did Gokuu look so... worried?"

"I dunno, Yamucha," said Kuririn, brushing hair out of his eyes. "Maybe it's some sort of age problem..."

"Nah. It's probably the flu - I hear it's going around. Maybe we can find out if there's anything else wrong at the party," Yamucha said, dismissing the terrifying idea of getting old as casually as possible. "Let's go!"

"I hardly see why the all the rush is necessary," Yajirobe complained. "Kid's already been born, ya know."

"There's free food, Yajirobe," said Tenshinhan as he packed his bag, not bothering to look up. "And Chi-Chi's probably cooked it, so it's bound to be good."

Yajirobe grunted. "Well... all right," he conceded, then turned and walked off toward his capsule car.

"Just as long as the water is filtered," grumbled Piccolo, and then they left.

The party was in full swing by the time the rest of the Z-warriors got there. Bulma had called out all the resources, and there was so much food there that both the Saiyans and their children would have enough to eat. Gohan had not yet arrived, but he was scheduled to be there later with freshly developed pictures in tow.

Kuririn and his family were the last to arrive, and were pleasantly surprised to find that Bulma was greeting everybody at the door.

"Kuririn!" she said enthusiastically, hugging Kuririn and Juuhachi-gou and bending to kiss Marron on the cheek.

Kuririn could not believe his eyes; everybody was there. "Hey!" he called. "Lunch! Long time, no see!"

"Yeah," Lunch said quietly, staring blankly at the antihistamine Bulma had pressed into her hands the moment she walked through the door. "I couldn't miss Gokuu's grand-baby."

Kuririn smiled, moving aside for one moment so his wife and daughter could get in; Marron immediately ran over to play with Bra, who was standing by her father on the other side of the room. Vejiita stood by the fireplace, back to the wall, half hidden in shadow, arms crossed and scowling. As usual.

"Boy, Bulma," Kuririn said in an undertone. "I can't believe Vejiita's letting you do this – have such a big party, I mean."

"Well," she said, primly. "Ever since our marriage became legal, he's changed. Sort of. Let's just say that with a little give here and a little take there, it's a lot easier to get along." She smiled. "And as for the party, he's been promised a reward later on tonight. And that's all you need to know." She turned and grinned, and was rewarded with a brief but wicked flicker of a smile from Vejiita.

Kuririn shuddered and went in. He didn't really want to think about it.

"Well, that's everybody," said Bulma, and turned to shut the door, and that's when she started coughing.

It had a rough, painful quality to it, and went on long enough that everyone in the room stopped to look at her. Vejiita had uncrossed his arms and was frowning in her direction with something more than concern.

Kuririn patted her lightly on the back. "Hey... hey, are you all right, Bulma?" he asked when it looked like she could answer him.

"Yes, Kuririn, I'm fine," she croaked, perhaps a bit more testily than necessary.

"But... you sounded..."

"I said I'm fine! Why don't you go find Juuhachi-gou?" she cooed dangerously, and Kuririn, taking the hint, went into the living room and sat down. One did not defy a cooing Bulma.

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment more, and then Gohan finally arrived. There were pictures to look at and the new father to congratulate, and within a few moments everyone was talking and the incident at the door had been forgotten.

In the midst of the commotion, however, there was a quiet but heated debate going on between Bulma and Vejiita in the corner. She had a pack of cigarettes in her hand, and Vejiita was in the process of forcibly taking it away from her.

Gokuu alone observed this, although he did not know quite what to make of it. Storing the information away for later, he turned back to enjoy the pictures of his new granddaughter.

* * *

**Interlude 1.1: Dende**

Despite the unpleasantness of his situation, Dende could not, for the life of him, think of what to do.

Dende stood, tall and strong as any Kami should, keeping a firm hold on the accursed blue and red dragon ball which rested so innocently under his arm. Thus far, he had been able to make out neither where he was nor who he was with; he couldn't clearly see his companion, truthfully, and half the time, he couldn't even hear him.

Her.

It.

Whatever.

At least one defining characteristic of the creature _had_ surfaced: diligence. Oh yes - it certainly seemed to be quite dedicated to the cause of making Dende as miserable as possible.

There was yet another bizarre but familiar movement to his right - that of something proportionately misshapen bouncing fully as high as Dende was tall.

"Pluck a-plick a-sing a song," the thing sang in what it apparently thought was a winning voice. "Love is grand as night is long; moon is dim and stars are bright – oh, frick a-frack a-tuck a-tight..." and the thing continued to bounce, always just on the edge of Dende's peripheral vision.

"Ah – yes," Dende said, tightening his grip on the eighth dragon ball. "I don't suppose - " he began to ask.

"No no, my friend, you DO suppose! Quite a bit, and all the time!" The thing chortled as it leaped, a high, unbalanced sound, and Dende was momentarily gripped with the fear that he _would_ see it fully and go mad himself. "Why, you are a positively inappropriate ball of contradictory and satisfying presuppositions!" it said, apparently delighted.

"Um – yes," said Dende again. "But I was wondering – "

"You certainly were!" it shouted.

" – if perhaps it ever gets lighter here," Dende pressed on.

"Ahh..." the thing hissed quietly, and for a moment it seemed to stop bouncing. "Yes, it does, my wayward little Kami," and Dende shuddered at the veiled malevolence in its voice. "But only at the End."

"The end?" asked Dende faintly.

"Not the 'end,' but the ' ** _END_** '!" the thing shouted gleefully. "Bye," it said, and then hopped away.

"Wait!" called Dende, but it was too late – the creature, whatever it was, had gone. Dende sighed; this was not a good place to be stuck alone, no matter how odd the company. He looked up and around him; he was not really expecting to see anything, and therefore was not disappointed. Above him was a dark, faintly luminescent blue, the color of the sky over a desert on earth at the tail end of dusk. That was where the similarity ended.

Around him was black. He knew there was mass of some kind, because he was certainly standing on _something_ \- but what it was, he had no way to discern. It was as if the ground sucked light into itself and returned nothing. As far as he could see, in any direction, there was only the slightly curved bowl of the sky above and the blackness which met it at the horizon. There was no sound; no scent; no texture even to the ground on which he stood. Such a place could drive a lone man out of his mind.

The odd part – if one thing could be singled out – was that there _was_ a light of some kind around him; not enough to illuminate his way, but enough that he could see himself and quick glimpses of his departed bouncing friend. In this place, his dull clothing seemed to shimmer with life.

Why? He had no idea. Just another mystery to add to the agenda, folks.

Wait – what was that? Dende squinched his eyes and leaned forward slightly, trying to make out what he thought he could see in the distance. There seemed to be some small... _shapes_... against the dark blue of the sky; from here, they looked like stunted, leafless trees.

For a long time Dende stood and simply stared at the bleak things, waiting to see if they would begin to move or perhaps try to eat him. He could sense no life, but that meant nothing; he hadn't been able to sense his strange hopping companion yet, either when it was approaching or when it had gone.

Dende sighed. Summoning all his courage, he stepped out into the seeming nothing and was glad to find there was indeed solid ground beneath his feet. He was not really surprised when the bouncing thing reappeared beside him.

"Finally made up our minds, have we?" it asked happily, leaping and flinging its deformed limbs just outside Dende's field of vision.

"It seems there is not much else I can do," Dende said quietly, shifting the huge dragon ball to his other arm; blasted thing was bigger than the ones on Namek.

"You got that right," it said congenially, and followed him in silence as he cautiously made his way toward the strange tree shapes in the distance.


	2. Farewell, Bulma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death has its way. A supposedly lost ship full of Saiyans shows up. And the "other" Nameks find themselves in a perilous situation.

Kaiou-Sama morosely shook his head as he surveyed the events on earth.

"Oh, dear," he said, antennae quivering like a lobster's. "Oh, this is terrible! What are they going to do?" He sighed, visibly upset. It seemed that ever since the dragon balls had disappeared, trouble had been not raining, but pouring. The Z-warriors had at least been up to the challenge thus far - aliens, natural disasters, whatever it was, they had handled it; however, the mess on earth was sure to overwhelm even them eventually. The really upsetting part was that none of them had figured out the dragon balls were gone yet.

He twitched his antennae a few more times, fretting.

Of course, Kaiou-Sama's first move had been to telepathically contact the new planet Namek, trying to reach Muuri and the other set of dragon balls. Bizarrely and for reasons unknown, the Namek elders weren't answering - were not, in fact, as far as the northern Kaiou could tell, even on their new planet anymore. The one young Namek he _had_ been able to contact had not been able to provide any explanations.

Damn. When it poured, it _poured._

"There's just nothing I can do for them down there," he whimpered as he walked into his igloo-like house, followed closely by a concerned Gregory and an oblivious Bubbles. "Here I am, stuck up here, and they...." He stopped.

"Oh, no," he said, looking stricken. "Oh no, not that... oh, how terrible. They'll all be so upset." He sighed, resolving himself. "Well... maybe there is _something_ I can do. Come on guys," the Kaiou said, turning to Gregory and Bubbles. "We've got to clean this place up. We're going to be having company."

Communicating silently with Enma-Daiou and waving his telepathic feelers emphatically as he did so, he began to neaten his small bachelor's home. Limited as he was, Kaiou-sama could see further into space and farther ahead in time than the Z-Warriors could, and while he was not always right, he was usually wise enough to recognize trouble. Well, there was trouble a-coming.

Plenty of it.

* * *

It was just a normal day at the Capsule Corporation when everything went wrong. Bulma, eyes still heavy with sleep, finally managed to cinch her bathrobe shut and shuffled into the kitchen. True to form, her son and husband had eaten a feast's worth and left her with the dishes; she could hear them now, fighting one another in the front yard and most likely tearing the landscaping to bits.

"Ugh," she said, exasperated. "Boys. Off to their precious training." She had tried, without notable success, to "yuppy-ize" Trunks, hoping to preen him to take over the Capsule Corporation when he grew up, unfortunately, it had become apparent very quickly that there was just too much of his father in him to make him completely comfortable in a business suit. The funny thing was, Vejiita felt that the boy had too much of his mother to be a proper warrior; not one like the "other" Trunks, anyway, who HAD had warrior's blood in him. As if THAT made any sense.

Ah, well. These men... they were strange, but they were hers, and as such, they would never change. She didn't really want them to.

Taking advantage of the fact that Bra was still asleep, Bulma decided to clean rather than cook breakfast. Smiling to herself, she picked up a dish and turned on the water. She had just picked up the third serving platter when she started to cough.

Her face twisted. The sharpness of the pain surprised her so much that she dropped the plate she was holding, and it broke; naturally, she tried to curse in response. This was when she discovered that she couldn't control her breathing - she couldn't even gather enough breath to utter one simple expletive. That's when she began to worry. Forcing herself to remain calm, she braced herself on the edge of the counter and rode it out, trying to wait until the coughing stopped before allowing herself to panic.

It did not stop. It grew worse, and in a very short time she had tears running down her face and was lacking enough air that she grew dizzy.. Bulma found herself falling to the floor, thinking distractedly that she was going to cut herself on the platter shards and hoping that it would at least let up long enough for her to call Vejiita's name.

* * *

Gokuu was just sitting down to lunch when Vejiita quite literally burst through the door.

"Hey, Vejiita... uh, you really shouldn't have ripped the door off the wall like that. Chi-Chi's going to..." He did not have quite enough time to say what Chi-Chi was going to do as Vejiita charged at him, grabbed him by the throat and pinned him to the wall.

"Where are they?" he roared, pushing Gokuu harder and making the wall boards creak alarmingly.

"Where are what?" choked Gokuu, and in response, Vejiita's grip tightened. Gokuu was in a quandary; he didn't want to fight Vejiita - that would just be unfair - but, on the other hand, it was getting increasingly difficult to breath.

"Oi! What's going on out here? Oh, Gokuu!" Chi-Chi clutched the sides of her head in horror, and she came racing through the door. "Vejiita, what are you doing to him? Let him go, RIGHT NOW!" Taking hold of a cast-iron frying pan, she started frantically clubbing Vejiita on the head.

Vejiita ignored her.

"I'm not going to ask you again, Kakarotto!" he yelled, spittle flying from his lips. "Where are the dragon balls?"

Gokuu, who could not breathe, gurgled.

 _How can I tell you if you don't let me go?_ He asked Vejiita telepathically. Vejiita glared at Gokuu for a moment longer, then released him with a shove. He stepped back and crossed his arms, still ignoring Chi Chi and waiting for an answer.

Gokuu rubbed his throat. "Why do you want them so bad? Why don't you just use Bulma's dragon radar?"

"Because the damned thing's broken!" Vejiita shouted, and his voice uncharacteristically cracked. "It's got to be. I can't..." And then he did another very un-Vejiita like thing. He started to cry.

Gokuu stood in amazement, watching silent tears roll down Vejiita's cheeks; and suddenly, he knew.

"Bulma," he said quietly.

"She's coughing up blood," said a voice from behind Vejiita, and Trunks walked through what was left of the doorway. "We can't find the dragon balls - we've been looking all morning. And the doctor said... mamma is in such bad shape, he didn't think..." he looked at his father, but Vejiita had wiped his tears and hardened once again.

"Low-class woman," he growled. "I told her not to smoke." Trunks winced.

"Vejiita!" said the offended Chi-Chi, and hit him with the skillet again for good measure.

"Don't worry, Vejiita," calmed Gokuu as gently as he could. "We'll find them. We just need...

"I've looked. He's looked. We've all looked," Vejiita snapped. "What I think you'd better do is get the hell up to Kami's lookout and have a nice talk with Dende. If you don't, I will - and I don't think he'd be happy at all to see me if I showed up right now," Vejiita rumbled, obviously controlling his temper with a superb act of will.

So, Gokuu went. He was gone five minutes before he returned, looking extremely confused.

"There's a problem," he said. "I'm going to go to Namek - the new one," he said, and vanished once again. This time he was gone for half an hour, and when he came back, he had very bad news.

"Um," he said uncomfortably, "I'm afraid the dragonballs aren't the only thing that's missing."

* * *

There is no question that the next two weeks were hardest on the prince of the Saiya-jin. Helpless, hopeless, he was forced to stand by and watch while his wife - the only person he had ever truly loved, more so than his son, more than his father, more so even than himself - withered away before his eyes. Toward the end, he wasn't even allowed to touch her - just had to look at her, pale and shapeless inside her oxygen tent, and barely able to breathe at all for the demon that was eating her alive.

The doctors had been quite clear; there was nothing they could do. They did not know what she _had._ They, like Vejiita, had initially assumed cancer - but if that's what it was, then it was unlike any they had ever seen before.

After her initial exploratory surgery, one of them had held up a small glass vile with something dark and evil inside; it was making the glass steam.

"This is the stuff that's in her lungs," he said. "We don't know what it is or where it came from, but it's literally breaking down her tissue like acid. I'm sorry to say it's spread. Even replacing her lungs now would do no good; it would only prolong the inevitable."

"But there must be a cure," argued Vejiita.

"There isn't one," the doctor said simply, and Vejiita had decided that the worthless man had to die. He would have killed him, too, if Gokuu had not grabbed his upraised elbow at the last minute to stop him from spearing the alarmed doctor through like an uncooked hotdog.

Nothing. There was nothing they could do.

They tried small doses of chemotherapy, radiation - but all those things did was make her more ill. In the end, it was Bulma herself who had vetoed further treatments.

"I don't intend to spend my last days bald and bony," she'd said as she lay in her bed, surrounded by bowls to catch her phlegm and blood. "Afraid that even if I sat down wrong my skin was going to break, hooked up to wires so I look like one of Dr. Gero's horrid creations - ah, sorry, Juuhachi - all weak and sick because I'm being poisoned by my own doctors? No way! If I'm going to die, I'm going to do it with some _dignity,_ damn it!"

"But..." started the doctor, and Bulma had immediately picked up one of her bowls - fortunately empty - and hurled it at him. After the doctor had left (gingerly holding to his head an ice pack that Trunks had given him), she would sit there, nostrils flaring, and declare that she would decide her _own_ fate, thank you very much. At those times she seemed completely unafraid, untouchable, inviolable - and Vejiita loved her more than ever.

But, as the song said, love was not enough. She got worse, and after a while, it just became too hard to hope.

The last step, before she stopped being able to wake up, was a senzu bean. Gokuu had been so sure it would help; so very innocently confident. He had been so very upset when it didn't work.

Now, Trunks simply did not come home any more. He had taken one look at his mother unconscious in the oxygen tent and hit off for Gokuu's house, and no amount of coaxing could bring him back. Well, that was fine; not something for the boy to see, anyway. Bulma was being completely humbled, all her strength taken away; and sensitive to this, Vejiita threw Gokuu and everyone else out of the house and told them to go home and stay there - which included Bra, whom he sent to stay with Kuririn and Juuhachi. Nobody was going to see Bulma in this condition except for him.

So Vejiita cared for her alone, bathing her when she needed it, giving her food when she thought she could keep it down, and even - heaven forbid - changing her bedpan. She had told him, before she lost consciousness, that aside from the inability to breathe and all the blood and stuff, she was as cozy as she'd ever been in her life.

Vejiita sat, jaw muscles tight, and watched her sleep. The shallow rhythms of her breathing were no longer even and he needed no doctor to tell him that soon her suffering would be over for good. Her hair had been cropped short, much shorter than she liked it, simply because it was easier to keep clean. There was no color in her face; her parted lips were chalky and dry, and her body had almost no substance to it. It seemed that even her breasts had shrunk.

He stared at her, his expression naked.

"You're still beautiful," he said quietly, knowing that nobody could hear him, and then put his head in his hands and wept.

* * *

**Interlude 2.1: Namek**

Muuri finally gave up and leaned back against the wall, surprised to find himself for the first time in years wanting nothing more than a good cry. He had been trying desperately to find a way out, but to no avail - the doors he had located would not open, the windows would not break. Not that he could even see _through_ the windows; they were so encrusted with filth it was a wonder they were recognizable as windows at all.

And it had started out to be such a _nice_ day.

There he had been, he and his small population of Namek people, just minding their own business, when a group of Saiyan-like individuals had landed and started demanding information. Muuri, remembering all too well the horror of Freeza and quite aware that the Z-warriors were eons away, had done his best to calm and smooth things over, but it hadn't been enough. These Saiyans... they just weren't _right_ , somehow. They looked like Saiyans, sure, and they sounded Saiyan, and they even smelled Saiyan (although that was something else in itself); occasionally, they even acted like Saiyans.

Muuri was ready to bet his golf bag that they were about as Saiyan as he was.

All they did was ask about Vejiita, not a name any Namek recalled to mind with fondness; and of course, nobody would tell them anything. After a short while, these strange Saiyan-impersonators apparently tired of their new green playthings and had decided to do something else with them.

"Fill your water packs," they'd said, and once that was done, they'd used their astounding array of devices to simply remove the entire population of Muuri's village - including all the elders, who'd unfortunately chanced to be gathered for a meeting - to some unknown building in the middle of nowhere and left them there. Alone. In the dark.

The annoying thing was, this place seemed infuriatingly familiar - even though Muuri knew he had never been anywhere like it before in his life.

"Humph," Muuri said to himself, remembering the trip. "Saiyan technology, my a..."

He jumped as a small hand slipped into his, and even though Muuri could not see, he turned his face toward the small Namek beside him and smiled.

"You doing all right, Moot?"

Moot, as always, responded succinctly, articulately, and with absolute truth.

"I'm hungry," he said.

"Me too, Moot," sighed Muuri, holding back the sigh that might sound like despair. "But we have to be careful with our water; we don't have that much, and I'm afraid to let anybody drink a lot. We may not be able to get any more for a very, very long time."

Moot wiggled closer to Muuri, taking comfort in the bigger Namek's presence.

"It's so stale here. What are we going to do?"

Muuri shook his head. Stale... yes. Leave it to a child to perfectly encapsulate the present adventure in only a few words.

"I know, Moot. I know. Why don't you try to sleep now?" Moot obediently leaned against Muuri's comfortably round stomach, and was out within moments. Muuri stayed where he was, gently stroking the young Namek's head.

"What are we going to do indeed, my child," he said quietly, and putting back his head, also slept.

He dreamt of golf.

* * *

Pan sat in the grass and played. She had a toy - a stuffed, purple dinosaur - and that was enough to keep her occupied. She had noticed the odd, strained silence around her, but being only a few months old had only limited comprehension of what was happening.

There was no way she could truly understand.

Goten shifted once, noisily in spite of the smallness of his movement because of the fabric of his suit. So far, no one had said a thing; he was getting very hot, and he _really_ wanted to loosen his tie. The humidity was terrible. He was sure the extra strain on his mother was not good, and had suggested loudly - and on numerous occasions - that she stay inside the small chapel. Chi Chi, however, wouldn't hear of it; and Goten, as his father and brother before him, had learned long ago that what Chi Chi wanted, Chi Chi got.

Gokuu stood behind his son, one hand on Goten's shoulder, looking anxiously across the way at his fellow full-blooded Saiya-jin: Vejiita.

Vejiita did not move.

The Saiya-jin prince stood rock-still in his dark suit, his fingers hooked into taut claws, his face locked in a scowl much more bitter than any Gokuu had seen there before. Behind him stood Gohan, and behind him, and to the side, stood Piccolo. The two were there as guards, of a sort; neither were entirely sure that Vejiita was capable of maintaining his stoic silence, and should he start get out of control, they wanted to be there to attempt to contain him before he hurt himself - or anyone else.

The priest nodded once; and slowly, carefully, the four hired hands began to lower the coffin into the ground.

Still, Vejiita stood unmoving. His fingers suddenly clenched into fists, and in moments blood began to seep from his tortured hands to the unyielding ground.

"Vejiita-san..." said Gokuu.

Vejiita did not respond.

"Vejiita-san," Gokuu began again, and Vejiita looked up at him with bloodshot eyes. "Shut up, Kakarotto," was all he said, and silence was resumed.

A shovel was handed to him. As the husband of the deceased, he had the right to the first pile of dirt placed in the grave.

Later, when it was over, the mourners began to drift from the grave site one by one, seeking comfort in silence and solitude.

"Papa," said Trunks quietly, greatly daring to put one hand on the shoulder of his bereaved father.

"Go away," Vejiita said.

"Otou- "

"GO!" Vejiita roared, and Trunks took a step back.

"Come on, boy," said Piccolo, stepping behind the young man and placing one guiding hand on his arm. "Leave the prince to his misery."

Nodding silently, Trunks took his little sister by the hand and walked away, crying his own tears as he went. He ended up having to carry the grieved Dr. Briefs home.

Soon, everyone was gone but Vejiita and Gokuu, who sat in the grass on the other side of the grave and said nothing. The two remained where they were, one sitting, one standing, for the rest of the day and long into the night, neither moving nor speaking. They did not leave for their respective homes until well past four in the morning, and the sun was threatening to break up the starry sky.

Vejiita turned to go, and then he stopped. Without looking back, said, "Kakarotto."

"Yes, Vejiita?"

"Thank you."

Gokuu merely nodded, and both went home.

That was the extent of the prince of Vejiita-sei's official mourning.

* * *

Things settled down for a while. Oh, that's not to say that there weren't problems of a sort. Vejiita was even more taciturn than usual, and Trunks, who really didn't like being at home anymore, got into the habit of retreating into the wilderness with Bra to take out his angst on any rogue monster or thief he happened to find; but nothing of any real noteworthiness happened. There were happy things, too; Chi-Chi's health took a turn for the better, Mr. Satan worked very hard to spoil his new granddaughter, and everybody felt they could finally take a deep breath and relax.

You'd think they would have known better.

* * *

It was a beautiful day when the aliens arrived. Of course, no one expected them to be Saiyans.

Their spaceship landed at the Capsule Corporation, and some twenty fully-armed and dangerous soldiers came out - and stopped to stare, wide-eyed, at Vejiita.

"M... my lord Vejiita," one of them said, and they all bowed down with their foreheads right to the ground.

"Humph," said Piccolo, disgusted, and went into the house to get something to drink.

* * *

Gokuu, Gohan, Goten, and Trunks sat around Chi-Chi's kitchen table and stared at Vejiita. The raucous celebration of their visitors had been too overwhelming for important conversation, so, after ordering them to stay put and not break anything, the Z-Warriors and their respective sons had retreated to Gokuu's home in the wilderness to talk.

Thus far, there had been nothing to say. All they knew was that these Saiyans had supposedly been on a long-term, deep space mission, one which had as an ulterior motive the overthrow of Freeza's kingdom - and therefore, had not been recorded in Freeza's databanks. They had returned to their planet some three years ago only to find that they didn't _have_ one any more; so, using what persuasive means they possessed (on which nobody asked them to elaborate), they determined from the remains of Freeza's army what had happened. And upon going to Namek - the old Namek - they had found the Capsule Corporation markings which led them here.

Of course, they had not expected to find their leader alive; and more importantly, were not initially sure what to do with him. After all, they had lived for some years quite successfully with their present hierarchy; so Vejiita was the king's son. So what?

The debate had ended quite quickly once Vejiita went Super Saiyan.

Brief histories were exchanged, and it was generally decided for the sake of maintaining the peace the Saiyans would leave the earth soon to go on their merry way... hopefully, their leader in state.

"Of course, they want you go with them," said Gohan, breaking the silence. "And you probably should, at least on a trial basis - you're their leader, after all. They want to officially crown you their king."

Vejiita grunted something.

"Maybe this could be a good thing - who knows, maybe you can even keep them from being such heartless b- I mean," stammered Gohan, blushing at Vejiita's glare. "You could keep them from being vicious, deadly planet killers. You know?"

Vejiita narrowed his eyes and spoke the first words he had spoken since they arrived at Gokuu's cabin. "Those vicious, deadly planet killers are your heritage too, boy," he said dangerously. "And from what I've seen of you, you're not exactly harmless yourself. Not that it matters," he looked down at the table. "Just wasted your potential anyway."

Gohan blinked. He really did not know how to take that.

"Um, Vejiita?" asked Gokuu. "Do you... do you want us to come with you?"

Vejiita exploded.

"Of course not! Baka! Why on earth would I want a bunch of sniveling, peace-loving, half-bred, low class soldiers like you?"

Goten and Trunks gasped and moved precautionarily back from the table, but Gokuu just smiled and said a strange thing. "Sure," he quipped. "I'd love you to come with me - at least until I get set up someplace. In fact, why - it's the least you could do." They all stared at him. "Translation from Vejiita-ese," he explained somewhat sheepishly.

The two younger boys glanced back at Vejiita, who was still eyeing Gokuu with an odd look on his face.

"That's Bulma's expression," he said, and Gokuu's smile went down a watt.

"Yeah, I know," he said, and then brightened again. "But it works, doesn't it?" he added cheerily.

Somehow, Vejiita kept from hitting him, and rose instead to go.

"All right. You're coming with me," he said, glancing at Gohan. "At least on a trial basis. In fact, I order it - as your king."

Goten rolled his eyes. "Whatever," he said quietly, but not quietly enough. Vejiita glared at him balefully, and Goten gulped and humbly studied the table-top.

"I... I'm not sure if I should leave," Gohan said. "Pan is only a baby."

"Fine. Stay," said Vejiita dismissively, and walking out the newly replaced door, flew back toward his home.

"Woo hoo! We're going to space!" shouted Goten, and he ran to his room to pack. Gohan rose to leave as well.

"Got to go, Otousan. Videl needs me home with the baby," Gohan said. "But you know," he muttered on his way out. "It _is_ a little strange."

"What is?" asked Gokuu. Gohan turned at the door to answer him.

"That they didn't care that you and I are both more powerful than Vejiita," he said. "You would have thought that at least one of them would have suggested new leadership, since power is so important to them; but they didn't." He spoke almost to himself as he walked out the door. "It's almost like they expected what they'd find here." And he flew home.

Gokuu looked at Trunks, who had sat silently through the entire discussion. "Trunks?" he said. "Are you all right?"

Trunks did not answer. Instead he also walked out the door and flew away, disappearing into the night.

Gokuu sat where he was for a long time, thinking, trying work out Gohan's observations with what he knew of Saiyans. Something he couldn't put his finger on _was_ wrong; but since it was late, and he was who he was, he decided to let the smarter people figure it out and instead get some sleep. He just hoped that Trunks was going to be all right.

* * *

**Interlude 2.2: Bulma**

"Hmmm... oh, oh my, no - that won't do at all," complained Kaiou-Sama, moving forward to correct Bubble's unfortunate flower arrangement. "She's going to be here any minute, and..." he stopped suddenly and smiled. "About time," he said and went outside to greet his visitors.

Enma-Daiou appeared in the distance, taking great striding leaps and carrying a young, blue-haired woman in a white dress on his shoulder. He arrived within seconds.

"Kaiou-sama! You old dog, how are you!" bellowed the giant, slapping Kaiou-sama on the back and very nearly knocking him over. Kneeling, he carefully set Bulma down. "Well, here she is," he said. "All dressed up and ready to go! Doesn't she look pretty?" And his expression indicated that he quite meant what he said.

Bulma looked around. "So this is where Gokuu trained, huh? Weird... oop!" She sat down, hard. "I... I can't..."

"Oh, sorry about that," said Enma Daiou. "Gravity here is really high - if you were alive, it might even crush you. As it is, though, you can only get stronger!"

"Oh. Well," Bulma tried to wobble to her feet without much success. "I guess that's okay then." She smiled at her transporter. "Thanks for the ride, Enma-Daiou. It was fun." And she winked.

Enma-Daiou managed to blush a deeper red than he already was. "Well. Um. Hrm. See you around, Kaiou-sama," he said, and was out of sight in three steps.

Bulma watched him leave, then threw back her head and laughed. Gregory and Bubbles just stared at her, their mouths open; she was indeed beautiful. In death, she'd regained all her beauty and more - the vigor of her youth.

"That was great," she said, eyes sparkling. "I haven't done anything like that in ages. I just didn't feel like it," she said prissily, and managed to stand.

"Didn't feel like what?" asked Kaiou-sama, genuinely confused.

"Why, flirting, of course," said Bulma condescendingly. "Ever since I met Vejiita - well, not since I _met_ him, exactly, but ever since we... you know... well, ever since Vejiita, I just haven't felt like flirting with anyone else. Oh, I'm sorry," she said, seeing Kaiou-sama's blush. "I didn't mean to offend you - did I?"

The blue kaiou coughed into his fist. "Ah, no, Bulma. We've just... never had a human woman here before." Gregory and Bubbles were still staring.

Bulma smiled a victorious smile and put her hands on her hips. "Well, you're in for a ride," she said saucily, and looked around. "Say," she wondered, "aren't there any gadgets around here to play with?"

"Uh, Bulma, I think I should make something perfectly clear," said Kaiou-sama, pushing his way past the frozen Bubbles and Gregory and walking up to her. "I took a real chance in bringing you here, and I did so as a favor to Gokuu and everybody down there. You know you're going to be here for a while. A long while. Maybe even forever."

"Oh, pshaw," she said, using Bubbles for support as she started making her way toward the Kaiou's treasured car. "They'll find a way to bring me back. You don't know Gokuu - okay, well I guess you do, but you _don't_ know Vejiita. They're both determined to resurrect me, somehow, and somehow, they will - dragon balls or no dragon balls. So it may not happen now, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not soon - but I know eventually I'm going back." Her face suddenly grew pensive. "Vejiita," she said quietly to no one in particular, then turned to face the Kaiou. "I really thank you," she said seriously. "Heaven is nice, but in the interim I think I'd rather be among friends." She smiled, and Kaiou-sama, finally convinced in his own mind that he had done the right thing, smiled back.

"So," she said, hobbling toward his car once more. "Does that thing even run?"

* * *

Gohan was silent, holding Videl close to him.

"Go," she said for the third time, and he still didn't know how to answer her.

"How can I leave you?" he said finally. "Not now, when Pan is just beginning to get into things..."

"I know you have to," she said again. "It's just for a little while. Look, I want to go with you, you _know_ I do. It'd be just like the old days. But I can't leave Pan, and I know you _want_ to go - don't you _dare_ try to tell me you don't. Besides, you really have to. Next to Gokuu, you're the strongest, and you have a better head on your shoulders than all the rest of them put together. And besides, like I said - it's just for a little while." She kissed him, slowly, finally. "You're the best... my super Saiya-man," she said sultrily. "You give those stupid aliens a run for their money and show 'em what being an Earthling is all about," she said, and held him tight.

Gohan sighed. "You're right," he said. And just then, Pan started to cry.

"I need to go nurse her," Videl said. "Don't worry - you can be gone when I get back. It's just a 'see you later' - not a goodbye. Kick some butt for me, Gohan." And she smiled and walked away.

When she came back, Pan contented and asleep in her arms, he was gone. He'd left the window open. And as the wind-blown draperies rippled into the room and briefly eclipsed her from view, Videl, alone for the first time since her marriage, finally allowed herself to cry.

* * *

"Gokuu, don't go!"

Gokuu sighed. "Chi-Chi," he said, "please don't do this to me. You know I have to go, at least until Vejiita decides if he wants to stay with them permanently or not - he's still grieving, he doesn't even know what he's doing any more. And... well, to tell you the truth," he said, looking at her askance, "I haven't had a challenge in a long time. Not since Buu. I _want_ to go."

Chi Chi stood up straighter, and asked something she had never asked for before in all their years of marriage.

"Take me with you."

Gokuu stared at her. "I... can't do that, Chi Chi. Well, that is," he stammered before she could cut him off, "I shouldn't. It'll be dangerous - could be dangerous - and I don't want you getting hurt. And besides," he said with a wink, "the last thing I need is a bunch of filthy Saiyans staring at my beautiful wife."

Chi Chi did not smile.

"I think something bad is going to happen if you leave me, Gokuu," she said. "And I'm old and ugly, and your filthy Saiyans wouldn't want me."

They did not discuss the issue any more. Instead, Gokuu took his wife into his arms and showed her exactly how beautiful he still found her to be. But when he finally left, the heaviness in her heart had not eased. Chi-Chi usually did not get much in the way of premonitions; but this feeling of dread, while not completely unfamiliar, _was_ new to her in its intensity. Frightened of something she could not understand, Chi Chi rolled over and reached for the phone to call her father.


	3. New Frontier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newly crowned king Vegeta agrees to head to space with his and Gokuu's children - but oh, boy, was this a mistake.
> 
> Dende, meanwhile, makes a new friend.

"Well," said Gokuu, fitting the unfamiliar armor over his body and wiggling his shoulders up and down. "How do I look?"

"Wow, otousan," said Goten, who had never seen his father in Saiyan armor before. "You look... different."

Gohan laughed. "You look like Taurus," he said. "But don't worry, I won't hold it against you." Gohan kept chuckling as he pulled his own armor down over his head. The three Son men were changing into the only approved dress for Vejiita's coronation; none of their women were present. By choice.

"This feels so weird," muttered Goten, trying to adjust his own Saiyan uniform. "And I still don't know why they're calling it a crowning ceremony when nobody's using a crown..."

Outside their impromptu changing room, which was actually Trunks' old nursery, a fanfare of trumpets began to play. Not too badly either, considering who was playing them.

Taking their cue, the three members of the Son family exited the house and moved to the lawn to where the crowning ceremony was taking place.

* * *

Vejiita made his appearance. He walked out of the building which had been his home for the last 16 years and moved regally down the center "aisle," created by a red carpet and two alert rows of Saiyans. On the right of the throne stood Trunks, also elaborately dressed, and on the left stood Ru Sa, the captain of the guard.

Ru Sa was an extremely powerful-looking Saiyan. To Gohan's eye, he looked like a combination of Taurus and Radditz, with the bearing of the one and the appearance of the other. He supposed that some women would find him handsome; but to Gohan he just looked like a beast. There was something so... _brutish_ about him, a kind of sentient bloodlust that he had never encountered in any other being before; not even Freeza. And yet at the same time, he managed to come off as a complete gentleman. The combination frightened Gohan, on a deeper level than he cared to admit.

"My lord Vejiita," said Ru Sa in his smooth voice, "We are honored by your presence; after our years of searching, we have found you, and with your gracious permission, we have the unrivaled privilege of officially declaring you our king. Do you accept?"

Vejiita stood straight and tall, and spoke with a clarity of tone that Gokuu and the others had never heard from him before.

"I accept," he said, bestowing the favor graciously.

"Wow," whispered Goten. "He really _sounds_ like a king."

Ru Sa stepped back and waved another soldier forward. The Saiyan grunt came respectfully, head lowered, a chain and medallion dangling from his outstretched hands.

"Why isn't Ru Sa doing it himself?" whispered Goten.

"Sh," said Gokuu.

Vejiita knelt on one knee, inclining his head slightly. Silently, the soldier placed the medallion around Vejiita's neck.

And then Vejiita stood gracefully stood and with no warning struck the soldier in the face hard enough to knock him down.

Gokuu and the others gasped, but none of the Saiyans seemed particularly surprised.

Vejiita turned, his red cape flowing beautifully behind him, and walked to the makeshift throne sitting at the end of the red carpet spread on his lawn. There was dead silence until he sat down, and all of a sudden the Saiyan soldiers shouted and leaped into the air, throwing ki blasts at nothing for just the heck of it. Goten just about jumped out of his skin.

"What was that all about?" asked Gokuu.

"That was tradition," said the strikingly beautiful Saiyan to his right. "The medallion has to be placed on him as a representation of our servitude and his superiority. Then he has to hit the soldier who did it because he dared to touch the royal person."

Gokuu shook his head. "Weird," he said.

"No wonder Ru Sa didn't want to do it," muttered Gohan.

Goten stared for just a moment before getting up enough nerve to speak.

"Hi there," he said. She ignored him. "So what's your name?" he asked, and tried not to wince when she turned her powerful stare on him.

"Chive," she said coldly, and walked away.

Trunks walked up, laughing. "I think you just got dissed, Goten," he said.

"Up yours," said Goten and smiled back.

But Gohan noted that Ru Sa went nowhere and did nothing that would indicate joy for his king. Just stood there beside the throne with that too-Taurus grin on his face, lashing his tail back and forth, and watching the festivities.

Gohan decided to keep a _very_ close eye on the captain of the guard.

* * *

All too soon, it was time to leave. Having said their goodbyes to their friends and still wearing their Saiyan armor, the Son men followed Vejiita with no small amount of reserve into the large saucer ship.

"Whoah," said Goten. "Check it _out_..."

Around them were well-scrubbed halls of some unidentifiable, gleaming metal, pocked with unopened doors and plated with blinking control panels. Organization of the highest caliber was apparent everywhere; it all looked wonderfully maintained and very, very complicated.

"Well," said Gohan, hands on his hips. "So much for the technically challenged aspect of the Saiya-jin culture."

Trunks ran his hands along the smooth material of the walls; it seemed to buzz at his touch. "What is this?" he said. He was talking to himself, but one of the warriors - Cumber, he thought the name was - answered him.

"It's junsei-aion," Cumber said. "The most durable substance in the whole universe. Nearly the whole ship's covered in it."

"Was that the material used originally?" asked Gohan.

"No," answered Chive, coming up and interrupting. "It was an upgrade we received on one of the planets we... visited. Enough. Cumber - to your post."

"Touchy," muttered Goten as Chive marched away.

Vejiita walked in just after, cape fluttering and his regal armor catching bits of the light as he moved. He really did look splendid; the armor - spoils of war from some planet or another - was gold-plated, perfectly sculpted, and ornamented with curly-cue designs in blood red and bearing the seal of the house of Vejiita in the exact center of the breast. He did not, however, look happy.

Behind the him came Trunks, towing six-year-old Bra in hand. The little girl, so much like Bulma, was wide-eyed and frightened, and totally unprepared for Ru Sa to touch her.

"So pretty," he said, and gently brushed a hand through her hair.

"Papa!" she cried.

Vejiita whirled around, fists clenched.

"Keep your hands off her!" he ordered, sounding every inch the angry king and not at all joking. All the grunt soldiers stopped and stared.

Ru Sa smiled calmly. "Of course, my lord. I was just commenting on what a beautiful child she is. She must resemble her mother very highly."

Vejiita calmed not the slightest bit. "She does," he said. "And she is. And you will keep away from her."

Ru Sa took a deep, gracious bow at the waist. "Yes, my lord." Vejiita glared at him for another moment more, then turned and led the procession toward the bridge.

"I think there's going to be trouble," Gokuu whispered to his eldest son.

"No kidding," Gohan whispered back, and no one said anything else until they were already in space.

* * *

**Interlude 3.1: Dende**

Strange, the things you miss when in an unfamiliar setting. Take Dende, for example. He was in a very unfamiliar place indeed, a dead place, a _stale_ place, and yet the only thing he felt he'd wilt for the lack of was wind. A silly thing to ask, it seemed, but there it was. He was outside, in the open, but there was no movement, taste or smell to the air he was walking through. He wasn't exactly _hot_ , per se, but the heaviness of the air - not the right word, but another would not come to mind - was beginning to make him sweat.

And the tree-things were a lot farther off than he had initially imagined.

"Oh, la la," sang the hopping thing, merrily dancing along side him. "Don't know what you're doing, still don't know, do you, Kami? Oh, no..."

"And I suppose you do?" Dende sighed.

"Yup!" It happily affirmed, and kept bouncing. Dende stopped.

"You do?" he asked. "You know what I'm doing here? How I got here? What's going on?"

Bouncing Thing stopped, too; well, stopped It's forward momentum, anyway. "That depends," It asked, hopping up and down, "on what it is you want to know."

Dende pursed his lips and knit his brow, thinking. Did the accuracy or profitability of the answer depend on his wording of the question? Or was It just teasing him?

Not, realized Dende, that It really _had_ teased him, per se; at least, not beyond what Its personality demanded.

"I would like to know how I got here," he said, and waited for an answer.

It laughed - hopefully for joy - and frolicked, flinging Its four, strange limbs in impossible directions.

"The ball! The ball!" It said.

That was helpful.

"Yes, I know that," said Dende, bastion of patience. "But I need to know how the ball got me here."

"Do you really?" It said slyly.

Dende took a deep breath, held it for a moment. "Okay..." he said. "Well, then, why am I here?"

"AAAAAHH!!!" the thing howled, and whether Dende had hit the jackpot or triggered an apocalypse he did not know.

It calmed down as suddenly as It had exploded.

"You have to save the Real," It almost whispered. Dende blinked.

"What?"

"The Real," It continued. "All the trappings of the Real, all depends on the delegation of that most scrrrrum-diddly-otious ball you have tucked under your arm," It said. "Unfortunately, you can't use it."

"Why not?" asked Dende.

"Because you must be pure of heart," It said simply, and started hopping toward the tree things again.

"Gokuu," Dende said aloud without thinking.

"Oh, know so much, do you?" It said. Dende blinked. He wasn't sure what to say now.

"So what's wrong with the Real?" he asked. "Why is it in danger?"

"Because all of them are coming together at once. What was broken in the past must be made whole, or... crash! Boom! Gone. Nothing left," It said sadly.

Dende was confused.

"Listen..."

"Have been," It interrupted.

"Do you have a name?" Dende asked. He was not prepared for the answer.

It stopped jumping. Just landed on all fours in front of him and stopped, looking mournfully in his direction; and for the first time, Dende could see what It looked like. It was not nearly as grotesque as he had feared - although It was certainly just as strange.

Odd color; not really white, or beige, or even dun. It was a non-color, he decided. Very small boned; Its ball-round skull could have probably have rested comfortably in Dende's hand. And considering that, the Thing's eyes were huge; the two opalescent globes seemed to fill the whole head, lidless and expressive. At the moment, they were miserable.

"Do not look at It!" It cried through thin rodent's lips, and it took a moment for Dende to realize It was talking about Itself. Obediently, he looked away. "It has no name," the Thing said matter-of-factly but sadly. "It is Nothing, and Nothing needs no name." It looked up at him, visible through the corner of Dende's eyes, and he marveled at the cartoon-like proportions of the thing's body. For goodness sake, the broom-stick thin legs had what looked like small _flippers_ at the ends of them...

An idea seemed to pop into his head out of nowhere.

Dende took a deep breath, and not knowing what he was going to say, blurted, "Reep. Reep is your name."

The Thing looked up at him. "Name? Kami gives It a name?"

"Well... sure," said Dende, still not clear on what had prompted him to do so in the first place.

"WAAAAHHH!!!" Reep the Thing cried, and flinging itself forward, wrapped its long limbs around a very surprised Dende's waist.

"That's... that's all right," said Dende, reaching a tentative hand out to the sobbing Reep. "It's going to be all right." And he touched It.

The fur was so soft; Dende was completely unprepared for the smoothness of it, the feather-like quality, even though it was so short that in this non-light Dende had been unable to see it. As he stroked the creatures tiny, bony, jawless head, Dende began to realize that the Thing - Reep - was even more alone than he was in this place. Somehow, Dende didn't think there was a tribe of these things running around.

"Reep," asked Dende quietly when the Thing's sobbing abated a bit. "Can you help me?"

Reep sniffled; shuffled back from him with its bone-thin legs and blinked.

"It... Reep has been helping the Kami," it said. "It knooooooows things," Reep said, leaning forward conspiratorially; it didn't seem to mind Dende's direct gaze anymore.

"Dende," Dende said. "My name is Dende. And..." he paused, his head filled with yet another sourceless idea. He shrugged. "... I am your friend, Reep."

Reep grinned; an impossible sight, filled with far too many teeth than could possibly fit in its head - very sharp, triangular teeth - and said, "Follow!" And Reep the Thing began leaping once again, singing more nonsense as it went.

Dende followed, hoping that somehow, he was at least making progress.


	4. Independent Thinkers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vegeta has a duel. No surprise, he wins - but nothing about this "training exercise" went the way it should.
> 
> Meanwhile, Dende and the other Nameks make some discoveries.

When Vejiita woke up the next morning, his first conscious move was to reach for his wife; but instead of her familiar softness, his hand encountered the sharp corner of the bed stand.

"Damn it!" he hissed, and sat up.

Gingerly rubbing his wrist, he blinked the sleep from his eyes and remembered where he was. All around him were sterile white things, unfamiliar and chocked full of unnecessary comforts; and he was alone. Vejiita sighed; although by neither Earth nor Saiyan standards was he considered old, each morning that he awoke and forgot she was dead seemed to drain more of his vitality, aging and stiffening his limbs. He rose and carefully stood and stretched, feeling each muscle come awake and demand attention.

He was really in the mood to smash something.

"Wonder what they've got for an exercise room around here," he wondered aloud to himself as he dressed and went for breakfast.

* * *

Apparently, everyone else had already arisen by the time Gokuu, clad in his favorite orange gi, got out of his room. The banquet room wasn't hard to find; the smell of food and the laughing, talking, and eating noises of the small Saiyan army were enough to wake the dead. They could probably hear it all the way back on earth.

Pushing his way through a set of double doors, Gokuu stopped and blinked; he had never seen so much food laid out in one place. Salivating, he looked around for familiar face or an empty seat. Poor Trunks stood out like a purple land-marker; he looked miserable. Beside him, at the head, was Vejiita. The newly crowned king was eating slowly, almost delicately, with a refinement that had only been hinted at in his stay on earth. Gokuu suspected he was using royal manners not applied in at least 20 years.

Vejiita spotted him.

"Kakarotto," he called over the din. "Stop gaping like a stuck fish and sit down." All the Saiyans fell silent.

And stared.

Smiling nervously, Gokuu walked around the table and sat at the empty chair beside Vejiita, trying to look as harmless as possible. Inexplicably, they all started talking and eating again the moment he sat down, ignoring Gokuu's advent as if he had never happened.

Apparently, he was now in the approved eating-place for Earthlings. Goten and Gohan were seated beside him, and Trunks sat directly across. Bra was nowhere to be seen. They all ate in silence.

"Um-" Gokuu began.

"Quiet," ordered Vejiita, and so he was.

* * *

Trunks walked down the hall after breakfast, carrying the platter of food he had been ordered to bring to his sister. Bra had been locked in her room, not for any known offense, but for her protection - or at least, such was Trunks' personal opinion. The door had been programmed to open only for her and her father, so Trunks was forced to click on the intercom.

"Who is it?" came Bra's small, playful voice.

"Its me," he answered. "Trunks. I've got your breakfast here."

Bra giggled and pressed a button. "Open," she commanded.

"Whoa," he said, walking in and looked around. "You got a better room than I did."

Bra smiled; Kami, she looked like Bulma when she did that. "I know," she said. "Otousan said that as the Princess I only deserved the best." And she giggled again.

Trunks smiled weakly. "You sure do, Bra. The littlest princess." And he handed her her breakfast.

"Ewwww..." she complained, picking at her plate. "What is it?"

Trunks scratched his head. "Eh, I don't know. I suppose it's good; we all ate it. I think it's eggs, or something."

Bra stared down at the food on her plate, poking at it with her chopsticks as though expecting it to move. Trunks looked at her carefully.

"Bra?" he asked. "Are you all right?"

Bra looked up at him, and he was surprised to see that her eyes were wet with tears.

"I don't think papa likes me any more," she said quietly.

"What? Why?" asked Trunks, a little shocked. "I mean, I know he's been a little busy lately, but..."

"He doesn't like to look at me," Bra said simply. "Not since... not since Okaachan died. It makes him upset. He didn't even want me at breakfast with him."

Trunks closed his eyes, swallowing hard. _I shouldn't have to be dealing with this,_ he thought to himself. _This is supposed to be for parents; how am I supposed to be explaining-_ but he didn't finish that thought. Trunks sat on the bed beside his sister and put an arm around her tiny, tiny shoulders.

"No, Bra," said Trunks gently. "That's not it. He just misses Okaachan so much... you look like her, you know. Pretty, pretty girl," and he tweaked her nose. She smiled. "When he looks at you, he thinks of her, and it hurts. It hurts him more than it hurts us, I think. Don't worry," he assured her with a little hug. "He put you in here to keep you safe, you know. I don't think he trusts these Saiyans," he said, almost to himself.

"I hope not," Bra said defiantly. "They're nothing like Papa, or even Mr. Son, and I don't think they're Saiyans at all."

"Bra!" Trunks exclaimed, shocked. "What on earth would make you think that? They seem Saiyan enough to me, and Papa seems happy. Why else would he have gone with them and brought us too?"

Bra looked at him, angry.

"Now Bra," Trunks chided. "I think I would know better than you."

Bra's eyes squinched in an unconscious copy of Bulma's angry expression. She was very young, and she knew it, but she also knew enough to realize when things were very, very wrong. "Yeah?" she challenged. "And how many Saiyans have _you_ met before?" Trunks shook his head. He could not answer her.

* * *

Gokuu was happier than he'd been in a long time. In the white, shielded training area of the ship, he was taking on five of the Saiyans at once and quite easily holding his own. He and Vejiita had been in here for the last three hours, while various "shifts" of the vessel's twenty-two troops came and went as time allowed them.

Gokuu risked a quick glance behind him at Vejiita. Not to be outdone, the erstwhile prince was handling seven Saiyan warriors, all of whom were considerably larger than he. He had not gone Super Saiyan yet either, and although Gokuu knew a part of Vejiita was dying to show off, he also knew that it was important to the king that he be able to handle at least these seven in his untransformed state.

And besides, Kakarotto would have to be "forced" to transform first.

Gokuu smiled and shook his head, not even looking as he fended off another group attack. Vejiita was Vejiita, and he would never change. Deciding to try something he had not used in a long time, Gokuu suddenly shouted, "Kaiou-ken times two!" and, glowing to match his gi, began mopping the floor with his present sparring partners.

Vejiita, of course, saw what Gokuu did; but he still didn't want to give up his advantage just yet. Stepping up his attack, Vejiita gave full reign to his vicious streak and in mere moments began to completely subdue his seven challengers as well, laughing as he did so.

And then, something happened. For no reason at all that Gokuu could see, his five antagonists abruptly abandoned him and went after Vejiita.

"Hey," said Gokuu, ignored. "What are you doing?" He flew into the fray and tried to get their attention back, but to no avail; they flew around him and headed back to their main target. Vejiita was now was facing twelve adult Saiyans at once, all of whom were much fresher than he was at this stage in the game. The door far below them slid open, and Ru Sa walked in, a white towel about his shoulders.

"Hello, what's this?" he said, watching.

"What's going on?" asked Gokuu, flying down to meet him. "Why are they all doing this?"

Ru Sa shrugged. "The king can handle it. This isn't a surprise to him. It's rather traditional, you know, for the Saiyan king to have to take on more than he _should_ be able to. It's good for the troops' morale."

"Morale?!?" protested Gokuu, incensed at the unfair odds. Pride and challenge were one thing, but enough was enough; angered, he flew up to join his friend, trying to give Vejiita a break. But these Saiyans would not be sidetracked; they were like men possessed. No matter what Gokuu did, the warriors would dodge - or try to - and then go right back after Vejiita like rabid dogs. And still Vejiita would not transform. So, doing his king the favor for which his king would never ask, Gokuu suddenly screamed and went Super Saiyan.

"Kakarotto, back off!" ordered Vejiita irritably. "You're not doing any good anyway!" Two more, the last two in the gym, leaped into the air to join the party. A moment later, Vejiita went Super Saiyan as well.

"Whoah," said Ru Sa from below. "Two Super Saiyans against my warriors? I don't think that's fair." He sounded calm, almost pensive - and now, tossing aside his towel, he flew up to join them.

The intensity of the fight suddenly increased far beyond what it reasonably should have. It was clear even to Gokuu's eye that Ru Sa could have probably held off the fourteen warriors all by himself for a very decent length of time. Long hair flying everywhere, he went swinging into the battle cluster with a smile on his face and a vigor that belied his calm, and in moments he had forced his way entirely through and was facing off with Vejiita. Disturbed at the ferocity with which Ru Sa was fighting, Gokuu doubled his efforts to distract the other fourteen.

He needn't have worried. The warriors quite gladly and with a mind turned on him; Ru Sa was just as brutal to them as he was now being to Vejiita. But now, they were forcing Gokuu away from his king. Knowing how important it was to Vejiita to be the strongest, he kept himself from going past Super Saiyan one.

 _Vejiita..._ invisible behind the cloud of Saiyan warriors, Gokuu telepathically reached out to Vejiita. _I can't get to you..._

 _Sure you can, Kakarotto,_ Vejiita laughed back at him; he was actually enjoying this. _Anybody who can take on Buu shouldn't have any trouble dealing with a few space-crazed Saiyans._

 _Vejiita!_ Gokuu protested, but he got no response; Vejiita had no more time to answer as Ru Sa suddenly stepped up his pace.

 _No way,_ thought Gokuu, wide-eyed. _He's keeping up with a Super Saiyan._ Ru Sa was nearly matching Vejiita blow for blow. Although it was clear he would eventually lose, he fought with a viciousness that seemed to indicate full intent of victory. And he was no longer smiling.

Ru Sa got one lucky hit in - a boot across the jaw. Vejiita went somersaulting backwards towards the wall, then suddenly rebounded off it and rocketed back toward Ru Sa. Roaring furiously, he went Super Saiyan two. What had been close before was no longer even a contest; Vejiita slammed into him and pounded him so hard that within moments, Ru Sa was pummeled unconscious, his body held in the air by Vejiita's blows alone. Shouting victoriously, Vejiita interlocked his fists high above his head and brought them down full force on Ru Sa's solar plexus, hurtling him to the ground.

Everyone, including Gokuu, stopped fighting and stared.

"Vejiita..." said Gokuu, aghast. "You didn't..."

"Baka. He's not dead, Kakarotto," growled Vejiita, still fully powered up and panting like a bellows. "He just learned what happens when you challenge a king."

Gokuu gulped and looked around; but the reaction of his fellow Saiyans was not what it ought to be. They simply stared, expressionless, as though they had all forgotten who they were.

Ru Sa stirred and managed to prop himself up on his elbows. Looking up at Vejiita, he spoke.

"Wow," he panted hoarsely. "You are... incredible. I have never... never met my match... before this day." He looked impressed, yes - but somehow, in spite of his humbled exterior, his bloodied smile gave the impression that he had expected no less than what had just happened. Orchestrated no less, in fact.

Gokuu began to get a definite case of the willies.

Vejiita was immune to it all. He crossed his arms and smiled. "And just you remember that, _Rhubarb_ ," he announced, spitefully using the captain's vernacular name. "It means death to challenge Vejiita."

Ru Sa wiped blood from his chin. "So I've gathered," he remarked, and tried unsuccessfully to totter to his feet. "Hoy!" he called up. "Spice! Cumber! Help me; I need to get to a regen tank." The two Saiyans called obediently floated down and picked their broken captain up.

Vejiita landed slowly, powering down; he was looking around now, and appeared extremely proud of himself.

"Training is over for now," he announced. "Everyone get cleaned up and go back to your posts."

Finally sending up some of the noisy ruckus expected of healthy Saiyan warriors, the twelve remaining soldiers obediently flew down and walked out in twos and threes, loudly discussing the momentous battle they had just seen. Gokuu powered down as well, and flew to meet Vejiita, who stood with arms crossed, watching them all leave like a stern gym teacher. Neither said a word until the last was gone and the door hissed shut behind them.

And suddenly, Vejiita was no longer looked cocky; instead, he looked old and very, very tired.

"That was really, weird," said Gokuu. "In fact... well..."

"What is it, Kakarotto?" asked Vejiita quietly; he seemed introspective.

"Well... they're weird. They're all weird."

"Deep space travel will do that to you," Vejiita said in what was meant to be a dismissive tone, still looking pensive. "Is there anything else?"

"Well, it's just that..." Gokuu knew he was risking Vejiita's ire by even suggesting such a thing, but his instincts had been screaming at him all morning, and he simply couldn't ignore them any more. "They don't seem quite right, you know? I mean, you'd obviously know better about this than I would, but they don't seem... _normal_."

"That's because they're not," said Vejiita simply, and walked out the door before Gokuu got the chance to ask him to clarify what he meant.

"Huh," Gokuu spoke aloud to himself, alone in the empty gym. He bent to retrieve Ru Sa's dropped towel. "I guess he'll tell me what's going on when he's ready to." Gokuu scrubbed his head with the towel, catching a whiff of his underarms as he did so. "Yick. I smell. Ah, well," he added to nobody cheerfully, dismissing the mystery. "Big strength, big smell. That's what I always say!" and smiling happily, he went to his own room to shower and change.

* * *

"Yeah," said Kuririn, his round head slightly distorted in Gohan's palm-held communicator. "None of that made any sense to me, either. So I called Dr. Briefs over and had him check out that sample you brought."

Gohan nodded. "Good. Any results yet?"

Kuririn sort of shrugged. His voice broke up in the transmission. "... seems... genetically com... Saiyan."

"What?" Gohan asked. "Say that again?" Bulma had certainly done a good job on these transmitters before she'd died, but they still weren't strong enough.

"I SAID," Kuririn shouted, as though talking to a deaf man. "THAT THE SAMPLE WE'VE GOT SEEMS GENETICALLY COMPATIBLE WITH SAIYAN TISSUE!"

Gohan chuckled. "No need to shout, Kuririn. That's it? Just 'compatible?' But what does that mean?"

Kuririn sighed. "I know how you feel, Gohan; I wish it had been that simple, too. But Dr. Briefs says that as far as he can see, that sample proves beyond a doubt that they really are Saiyan, so maybe their story checks out. I guess you'll have to take your hunch in another direction."

Gohan sighed and rubbed the sore spot between his eyes. "Damn," he said. "All right. Just make sure the good doctor keeps looking for new ways to test that sample, okay?"

"Okay, Gohan," said Kuririn patiently. "But I think this angle's dead. Hey, has Vejiita talked to you yet? Have you found out yet why he wanted to leave so all of a sudden?"

"Nah," said Gohan. "He's as tight as a board. I still don't even know what we're all doing out here in space - it's not like we're looking for a new home planet, or anything. Hey, Kuririn, I'd better go. I don't want anyone to find out about these things just yet."

"Yeah," said Kuririn quietly. "Especially not Vejiita. I don't think he'd be too happy to find out we'd borrowed his dead wife's things - not even to try to help him out."

Gohan nodded. "That would be interesting, wouldn't it?" and he chuckled. "Hey - give my love to Videl, all right? Signing off," he said, and did so. He put the small device, based on scouter technology, back under his pillow, and sighed. Leaning back against the bed, he debated the wisdom of trying to take a nap; there really wasn't much else for him to do. But Gohan had been trained by his mother too well; when faced with a problem, he simply had to sit down with pen and paper and work it out.

Gohan hopped off the bed and sat at the little desk, pulling paper from his knapsack. Hunching over it, looking for all the world like the little boy who had come back as a man from fighting Freeza, he began furiously writing facts down in Latin; somehow, he doubted even Ru Sa could read that. Thus far, he had little to go on besides feelings, intuition; a few reactions on the part of the "Saiyans" which didn't seem normal, but really nothing that couldn't be explained away by long-term isolation, as Vejiita had said. They were genetically Saiyan, and they had readily enough accepted Vejiita as their king. Too readily. It still bothered him that nobody cared about his and Gokuu's superior strength. It just didn't wash.

Gohan put the paper away. For some reason, his instinct told him that he needed to get to the bottom of everything quickly, before... well, before something bad happened. Frustrated with his lack of evidence, he got up and decided to start walking the halls.

* * *

Kuririn turned off the communicator and sighed. This was not good; no one had felt overly thrilled anyway when Gokuu and Vejiita had decided to go with the Saiyans, taking their children with them. Then Gohan had come to him, in the middle of the night, no less, with these communicators from Bulma; Gohan had sneaked them out of her lab, and you better believe it felt weird touching those things - especially since they were the last project she was working on before she died.

Gohan's idea, though paranoid, was a good one. He thought there was something wrong with these Saiyans, and nothing said to the contrary would convince him. In fact, he thought it was a trap. So...

"Please, Kuririn," he'd said. "Help me."

Kuririn didn't understand Gohan's reasoning - or even quite why he'd come to him instead of Piccolo, no matter how technologically challenged the Namek was - but he was willing to go along with it. After all, Gohan had been his friend for years, and when the boy was right, the boy was right. Sighing, Kuririn decided it was high time he brought the others into this. Picking up the phone, he called Yamucha.

* * *

**Interlude 4.1: Nameks Among Us, part one**

Muuri was contemplating his navel when the first light he had seen in two days made its appearance. Suddenly in front of him shone a dim, tube-shaped light, tipped with long, thin, flexile threads that caught the light and diffused it as they bounced. It seemed to be waving "hello" as it came.

Muuri blinked. "Moot? Is that you?"

In answer came Moot's playful giggle. "Look what I found!" he exclaimed as he waved his toy in the air. It was a simple plastic thing, no more than a glorified flashlight capped with color-tipped plastic feelers. It looked like a toy one would pick up at a circus.

"Moot! Where did you find that?"

Moot smiled. "It was over there in the corner, under a desk. It's battery-powered, like toys were on earth. Think we can use this to get out?"

Muuri laughed, caught up in Moot's elation. "Go get the others. I don't know about getting out, but as long as the batteries last, we can - "

He jumped as a loud pounding sound came from the window above his head, as of something or someone trying to get in.

"What..." Moot envisioned monsters, mutants, demons... and the window suddenly shattered inward, splattering Muuri with broken glass and sending Moot screaming into the shadows.

* * *

**Interlude 4.2: Nameks Among Us, part two**

Outside, Dende had come to the end of the world. He had followed Reep toward the tree things, only to find that they weren't anything that he could even begin to understand. They were cracks in the sky.

The sky above did just what it appeared - it curved down until it touched the ground, a solid, blue, unyielding wall. And in the sky were long, jagged cracks, expanding upward as they went, looking from a distance very much like the dead trees he'd originally thought they were.

It was disturbing. Dende wasn't sure he wanted to know what was on the other side of the sky.

"I... I don't get it, Reep," he said. "What is this? I thought we were outside."

"We are," answered Reep, not jumping. The small creature seemed quite nervous being this near the sky. "This is all there is of the outside, and it's only here because of Bulma the Wise."

Bulma? This was a new twist; Dende knelt down, getting on eye level with his compatriot. "What do you mean? You mean Bulma, the wife of Vejiita?"

"No no," It said. "Mother of Trunks the Warrior."

Dende gaped. "You mean - this is Mirai no Trunks' world?"

Reep considered. "This is All-Worlds," It said at last in that strange tone which It used to indicate capital letters.

Dende was now completely confused. He stood and looked around. "What do you mean, all worlds? The world I came from isn't like this."

"Will be soon enough," Reep said disconsolately.

Dende started to ask something else, then stopped and squinted; against the dim blue of the sky, now he thought he could see something a few yards away from him, something which he could have sworn had not been there when he had started following Reep. A large square something.

Dende approached the big black square and was mildly surprised to see it was a building of some kind. There were dirt-encrusted windows on the side of it, although no doors that he could see; he pressed his face to one of them, trying to peer through the blackness inside the building. There was some kind of dim, wavy light in there, moving up and down as thought the holder were bouncing. He pounded on the window with his fist, but it was too solid; he could not break it.

"Reep, I can't - "

Reep hopped up and swung one of its limbs - deceptively strong - into the window and smashed it in, frame and all; and in the dim light, Dende could see Namek-like forms quivering and scuttling away from him. Someone screamed.

Reep smiled. "You have found the others," It said.


	5. Intermission Earth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gohan's suspicions were more than correct, and the Capsule Corporation has unwanted visitors.
> 
> Meanwhile, Bra has a secret - a dangerous one.

Chi Chi was the one who found them.

Since Vejiita's departure, it had been nagging on her mind that with him gone, there was really no one to take care of Bulma's Place. She still thought of the Capsule Corporation that way, corpse or no corpse and the cleaning robots be damned; so, the day after Gokuu left, she locked up her own home and traipsed over to the Capsule Corporation in her small car to see what she could do.

She was somewhat surprised to walk into Bulma's lab and find the Saiyans there.

They were not ones she recognized; apparently, Ru Sa had not considered them worthy of introduction. They were noisily ransacking the lab, tearing things apart and turning things over, pressing every button and pulling every switch within reach. One of them was even going through Bulma's extensive files, systematically searching for some kind of information.

To Chi Chi's eye, they moved with the swift grace of those who know what they are doing, but dare not get caught; and to her great fortune, they had their backs to the door and so did not see her.

Trembling, Chi Chi backed away from the building and ran to the house to call Kuririn.

* * *

"Are you sure you saw them, Chi Chi?" asked Yamucha later on when everyone had arrived.

"Yes, Yamucha, I am." Chi Chi sounded strangely calm, cold; apparently, it was only when those she loved were in danger that she felt inclined to panic. "They were right there, all five of them, and tearing everything to pieces."

Kuririn looked around; everything seemed just as messy to him just as it had been two days ago. _Geez, if it wasn't one Son family member, it was another._ "Look, Chi Chi -" he began, exasperated.

"Hey, hold on a minute. Check this out," said Yamucha, straightening up from behind Bulma's computer terminal; he had pinched between his fingers a small something nobody could see.

"What is it?" asked Kuririn.

"It's a hair," he said triumphantly.

The others all stared at him.

"So?" asked Kuririn.

Yamucha looked hurt. "It's a Saiyan hair," he added as emphatically as possible. "I'm sure of it."

Piccolo stood with his arms crossed, surveying the room. "Baka," he said. "Vejiita lives here; the Sons come to visit. It could be anybody's."

Yamucha looked crushed.

"There might be another way to verify Chi Chi's story," Piccolo added contemplatively.

"Yeah?" said everyone at once. "What is it?"

"Follow me." With that, Piccolo led them out of the lab and into the main storage shed - which also housed the security system.

"Of course!" said Kuririn, slapping himself on the forehead. "The security cameras! How could I have forgotten!"

Piccolo didn't answer as he stared at the computer terminal. "Somebody else fiddle with this thing," he ordered. "I'm not... mechanically inclined."

Yamucha smiled and walked up to it. "I know how to work this," he said. "I learned how to in case I ever needed to erase a couple of tapes lest Bulma's dad see them." He smiled weakly. "Not that I ever needed to," he added. "She never let me get that close to her." Reverie over, he flipped a couple of switches and on the screen in front of them Bulma's laboratory popped into view. In moments, he had it running backwards. Moments after that, they all could see the Saiyans.

"What... what are they looking for?" asked Kuririn.

"I don't know," said Piccolo,"but I hope they didn't find it, whatever it was. Anything this group could want so badly must not be good. No wonder were so desperate to take off with Vejiita immediately."

Kuririn bit his lower lip. "I guess Gohan's hunch was correct," he said.

Piccolo only nodded. Of course Gohan's hunch was correct.

"Hey," said Chaou-Zu. "What's wrong with the film?"

Yamucha checked the controls. "Nothing's wrong with it."

"The Saiyans look... fuzzy." And so they did. Their movements were smooth enough, but every once in a while their outlines would blur, melt almost, giving the impression of mud sculptures shifting in the sun. It was almost as though they had to concentrate to maintain their shape.

No one had anything at all to say.

* * *

That night, Kuririn and Yamucha slept at the Capsule Corporation in the lab. Whatever it was the strange visitors had been looking for had not been found; they had left empty-handed and cursing like career sailors. Tenshinhan and Chaou-zu were staying not far away in the house, while Piccolo and Yajirobe played guard outside. Yajirobe, of course, had been volunteered for his position, and was not particularly thrilled about it.

"This is stupid. What am I doing running around outside with a bunch of mutant Saiyans on the loose? I couldn't even handle Vejiita, and he didn't have half the power back then that these guys do."

"Because you have a gift for sneaking around," Piccolo said simply, "and your ability to go unnoticed may be of more use than all our strength put together. You're not getting out of it. Try, and I'll sacrifice you to them for breakfast as a peace offering. In filets." Yajirobe gulped and became quite manageable.

Yamucha and Kuririn, at least, were prepared to hold down the fort. "I wish Juu-chan had been able to come," Kuririn said sadly. "But I couldn't let Marron be alone, and I wouldn't want to put her on Chi Chi; she's got enough to handle with the Ox King and Videl and Pan all practically living there already. But man, it's lonely out here."

Yamucha smiled sadly. "I know what you mean, little bro. I know what you mean." He yawned. "You take the first shift. I'm about to drop off."

"Okay, Yamucha," said Kuririn, obediently taking up his position by the door. It was going to be a very long night, and he didn't know when Gohan's next transmission was going to be; they had forgotten to set that up at their last meeting. Kuririn didn't dare call him. Now that he had proof that the Saiyans - or whatever they were - were up to something, the last thing he wanted to do was give up Gohan's hidden hand. He

* * *

**Intermission 5.1: Bra Has A Secret**

Every little girl is entitled to her secrets.

Bra had one, and she wasn't telling anybody - wild horses could not have dragged it from her.

Ever since the Vejiita family had pulled up stakes and changed their home to this ship in space, Bra had felt more than a little neglected. She was not allowed out of her room, and though she understood why - evil Saiyans running around, intrigue all over the place - it was still very hard to be alone. The fact that Vejiita was regretting his decision to bring her did not help matters.

Then Gohan had started coming to visit.

In her innocence, she did not wonder why he was coming to see her. All she knew was that aside from the occasional peek-in by her brother and/or father, Gohan was her only contact with the outside world. Even Goten seemed to have forgotten all about her.

Gohan, of course, had his own reasons for visiting her. Partly he just felt bad; no little kid should be abandoned like that, especially not after losing her mother, no matter what the reasons were. But he had alternative motives, too.

For one thing, there was Bra's unusual power of perception.

Gohan knew from experience that Saiyans tended to have at least latent telepathic abilities; if applied, they could be used to communicate over great distances. Most ki-manipulating creatures could do this. Gohan didn't know about that for Bra, but he did know something else: once she connected with a person, they were hers for life.

He had practiced with her just a little bit, and then tested her; throughout the day, he would check on her and quiz her about what he had been doing. Without even thinking about it, she answered correctly every time.

Gohan sincerely doubted Vejiita had any idea how talented his little girl was.

Deciding - perhaps a bit snippily - that Vejiita's knowing could wait, Gohan started surreptitiously training her himself, using his limited knowledge of such things to try to awaken her powers. He could not train her physically because that would not have remained a secret, but he most certainly could keep her brain from atrophying.

He did not know that Bra's ability was a rare and treasured talent among Saiyans called Sheinrei-Tsu. He did not know that this ability had been responsible for the downfall of entire dynasties in the Saiya-jin republic. Truthfully, he wouldn't have cared if he had known.

He also had no idea - not even a premonition - how important her skill would be to the future of their world.


	6. Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terrible things happen. Death on Earth, and death in space as a net closes in around the Prince of the Saiya-jin.

Gohan walked the halls at night, and he walked in them alone. The circular ship was built a little like some museums he had known; there were rooms and pathways branching out all over the place, but everything was connected to the main hallway in one way or another. Really, if you just kept walking, there was no possible way you could get lost.

Sighing, he walked down the hall, unconsciously shuddering as he passed the cafeteria and training room. It seemed that any hour of the day or night, somebody had to be fighting or eating - but the weird thing was, they were all doing it silently. Apparently, some representative of the Earth group had to be present in order to elicit an audible response.

Ttrue to form, both rooms were presently occupied - even at four o' clock in the morning.

"Doesn't anybody get any sleep around here?" he wondered to himself. Come to think of it, he had yet to come across any of these Saiyans sleeping; all their supposed bedrooms were always empty, at least as far as his trained senses could tell. Although his rational mind kept telling him that it was, after all, only his second night on the ship and not enough data was available to make any kind of theory yet, something about it still just didn't seem right.

 _It's like they're not real. Like everything they're doing is for our benefit alone,_ he said to himself.

 _Scratch that,_ he amended a minute later. _It's for Vejiita's benefit, not ours; in fact, I think we're only getting in the way._

 _Join the club,_ Gohan commiserated to himself. This something he liked to do; he split his brain into two sides, as it were, and conversed with himself. It was a stimulating exercise. He didn't always agree.

Gohan was very surprised to come around the corner and find Ru Sa on the prowl. The man was soaking; apparently, he was fresh out of the regen tank.

"Captain," he nodded, attempting to walk by.

"Gohan," greeted Ru Sa, more effusively than the hour would normally permit. "You're up late," he smiled.

To his credit, Gohan managed to smile back. "Just making the rounds, Captain," he said as innocently as possible. "I couldn't sleep - I usually don't sleep well initially in a new environment anyway, and so I thought I'd go for a little walk."

Ru Sa nodded, still smiling, letting his eyes wander over Gohan's slim form in an approving, fatherly manner. "Good; you've been trained well, not to waste the time the gods have given you. Tell me, do you spar?"

Gohan blinked; Ru Sa was still dripping with Saiyan DNA fluid, and by all accounts had already had a busy day. He'd fought, and healed, and if he was true to form at all was probably ravenously hungry - and still, he wanted to spar.

Damn, the man was appealing.

Gohan laughed. "Why? You up to it?" Ru Sa gave him a devil-may-care smile, and Gohan's suspicions began slipping away unnoticed.

The Saiyan captain smoothly extended his hands to either side, admitting his flaw with gentility. "Well, what can I say? Fighting is, after all, in my blood; and yours, too, I should imagine, judging by your breeding and history. I've only just gotten out of the regen tank; I'm stronger than I was this morning. From what your father tells me, you are even more powerful than our honored King Vejiita, and I would be thrilled - no, honored - if you would consent to spar with me."

Gohan paused; he knew he had other things to do, other matters to be thinking about, but this was tempting. Too tempting.

He blinked.

"Aw, the hell with it," he said. "Let's go." After all, even superheroes of Earth had to be spontaneous once in a while.

As luck would have it, the training room was - for once - empty.

Ru Sa had not been kidding about his increased powers; he reveled in the air, whooping and hollering as he executed graceful but poignantly deadly acrobatics and trying out brand new ki attacks just because he could.

Gohan, of course, had no difficulty at all keeping up with him; he was "Mystic," after all, and as such only second to Gokuu in his powers. However, he had to admit that this was the closest thing to a challenge he'd had in a long time, and to top it off, Ru Sa's attitude was contagious. Within minutes, Gohan was whooping and hollering right along with him.

Sadly, it ended all too soon. Without meaning to, Gohan landed a blow on Ru Sa's rib cage that sent the older man sailing backwards into the wall, to which edifice he actually stuck for a moment because of the residue of Gohan's ki.

"Oof," he said, and slid to the floor.

"Whoops," muttered Gohan. He knew Vejiita had done something similar earlier, but Vejiita was the king and could get away with this kind of thing. Hoping there would be no major ramifications for pulping the Captain of the Guard, Gohan flew down to see what he could do.

"Sorry about that - I got a little carried away," said Gohan, offering a hand to help the other soldier to his feet.

"Not to worry," Ru Sa reassured him amiably as he stood. "Your king did a worse job, and in a considerably shorter amount of time." He rolled his shoulders, stretching out the kinks. "Well, I've had a busy day. I've fought, and healed, and fought again, and now, true to form, I'm ravenously hungry; care to join me in the thing that Saiyans do second best?"

Gohan couldn't help smiling. "Gladly," he said, and followed Ru Sa - who didn't seem particularly sore either mentally or physically - to the mess hall. Which was, predictably, crowded.

It did not occur to him until it was much too late to wonder how it was that Ru Sa chose the exact same wording that had been in Gohan's own mind not much earlier. Had he remembered, it would have spared him - and everyone else - much, much grief.

* * *

**Interlude 6.1 - Tricksters and Tricks**

Naturally, the would-be thieves waited just long enough for everyone's suspicions to fade before they once again penetrated the Capsule Corporation.

* * *

Yamucha sighed; it was two o'clock in the morning on the second day of his watch, and the Saiyans weren't coming back. He was sure of it; so sure that instead of sitting just inside the door where he was supposed to be, he was sitting right above it - on the roof, to be precise.

Leaning back on his elbows, he gazed up at the stars and breathed deeply. This used to be one of his favorite places at night; he and Bulma would come up here after she had finished working at the lab and just enjoy one another's company and the view - both of the outdoors and each other. Yamucha had been so sure she was his back then; so he had a few indiscretions on the side - was that any reason to worry? And sure, they fought a lot, too, but that was just _Bulma_ ; she fought with everybody, and he had to admit that her passion - or promise of - added definite spice to their relationship.

There was a small noise, and Yamucha looked behind him. His quick scan of the area produced nothing, though, so he relaxed back on his elbows and continued brooding.

Promise of passion; yes, that had been the whole problem, hadn't it? She had never fulfilled that promise with him. Not once. And, fool that he was, he'd simply assumed that she'd always said "no" because she was waiting for marriage - for which he hadn't waited, and in fact, was not interested in at that stage in the game. It had never occurred to him that he was simply not good enough. Since she was sixteen he had known her, loved her, practically been civilized because of her, and in all that time he, the Desert Bandit, was never really good enough.

Down below in Bulma's lab, Kuririn was snoring. Yamucha smiled; at least Kuririn had found somebody. Of all the old gang - Yajirobe, Tenshinhan, Oolong, etc. - Kuririn was the only one who'd made it out of the bachelor's brigade, not counting Gokuu. He certainly seemed happy enough, though; and since -

There was that noise again; shedding his sulk like an extra skin, he rose and walked along the roof to investigate. Odd; there was a raccoon up here, wide awake in the middle of the night and scrabbling in the roof tiles. Stupid thing probably wanted to chew on the wires, or something. Sighing, he went back to his post above the door and stood, staring off into the distance. He waved in response to Piccolo, who flew past him on his course around the property. Piccolo, at least, had not lost any of his wariness.

And like a dog to its vomit, like a drunk to his rum, Yamucha's thoughts returned intractably to that subject which still caused him so much pain.

Enter Prince Vejiita; haughty, cruel, proud - and just the perfect match for Bulma's passions, promised or otherwise. Yamucha had not even been aware of what was happening; one day, everything seemed perfectly normal and right with the world, and the next day, she was pregnant. That's how it had ended between them. They had had one of their fights, she had thrown him out (again), and the next thing he knew she was with child - _his_ child. Not "Yamucha, I'd really like to see someone else," or even "You bastard, you cheated on me for the last time." No, just: "Yamucha, I'm pregnant." And she had smiled, like this was a terrific accomplishment on her part. He had always wondered how much of her vulnerability to Vejiita's enticement had been just because she needed to get back at him.

The noise was repeated, a little closer this time, but Yamucha ignored it.

Standing, stretching his muscles, Yamucha slowly floated down to the ground and turned toward the door; it would be Kuririn's turn to watch soon. He smiled. Funny, but he had never once questioned the genuineness of Vejiita's attraction to Bulma. Gohan had said the Saiyan prince remarked on Bulma's beauty while they were still on Namek; and of course, everyone remembered how Vejiita had been impressed with her bravery when she had decided to come see Freeza just before Trunks showed up for the first time. And even before that -

Suddenly, Yamucha's ki sense flared as if something with incredible power had materialized just behind him. But, he thought as he spun around, only Gokuu has the ability to transport from out of nowhere -

Apparently the large Saiyan warrior standing over him with the fierce grin and extremely strange-looking knife thought otherwise. The monster smiled even wider and, incredibly fast, too fast, rammed forward and into him, slamming one hardened hand into his throat and trying to rip into his side with the serrated blade at the same time.

Yamucha was shocked to feel the knife burn as it entered his flesh; no ordinary blade should have been able to so much as pierce his skin. His air and voice were similarly cut off; the Saiyan's face was right in his, and they desperately grappled for control of the deadly blade - it was hot to the touch. He had no idea how the Saiyan had managed to sneak past everybody, including him, but he knew one thing for sure: he'd be damned if he was going to die now. Yamucha placed one hand - the hand that was not presently engaged in wrestling for the Saiyan's knife - against the monster's chest and sent a power ball into him. He didn't have the chance to defend against what happened next.

The ki shot into the Saiyan - and out again, through his mouth and into Yamucha. The beast had channeled the blast through his own body.

The ki blast cooked him, frying his hair and singeing his organs; but Yamucha was still alive, and his last thought was that he needed to warn Kuririn. Releasing the knife hand - getting stabbed again wouldn't make any difference now - he balled his burned fingers into a fist and slammed the wall behind him as hard as he could.

* * *

Kuririn jumped awake as Yamucha's fist came crashing through the wall. A moment later, Yamucha's body came flying after it and landed, smashing delicate equipment and plenty of robots beneath it. Kuririn jumped up and had just enough time to shout once before the Saiyan was on him.

Unbelievable; the moron was actually trying to stab him with a _knife_. Unconcerned, Kuririn moved - and was somewhat disturbed to see the blade rip into the filing cabinet with the ease of a laser, hissing like a lizard and blackening the edges of the tear.

 _How strange,_ thought Kuririn; in all his adult life, he could never recall being afraid of a knife before.

" _Shi-ne_ ," the warrior seethed at him.

Well, two could play at this game. "Kienzan attack!" Kuririn called and threw his signature energy disk.

The Saiyan dodged, laughed like a loon and flew out the door.

"Hey..." said Kuririn, confused. "Come back here!" And he flew after him.

The warrior zigzagged all over the place, up and down and back and forth, keeping within the boundaries of the Capsule Corporation but covering what had to be a couple of miles in pure loop-de-loop action. Then suddenly, right above the place where everybody normally parked their cars, he abruptly spun around and actually began trying to engage Kuririn in hand to hand combat.

This was ridiculous; Kuririn overpowered the man by literally millions, as his scouter must have shown. Easily avoiding the clumsy attack, Kuririn slammed his closed fist into the warrior's side, sending him backwards into Yamucha's car - Yamucha's precious car, which he would never be needing again - crumpling it.

"What the hell are you doing?" shouted Kuririn, annoyed with his adversary's repeated exhibits of idiocy.

The warrior laughed again - an unusual sight to say the least, since his rear quarters were still stuck through the busted roof of Yamucha's car - and then he began to melt.

Not bothering with an artistic Cheshire-cat fade, the Saiyan simply dissolved like candle wax, still burbling laughter through increasingly glutinous lips as he did so, and vanishing into the darkness of Yamucha's car.

Kuririn was still standing there gaping when Piccolo finally arrived.

"What happened?" he said.

Kuririn did not know how to answer him.

Unnoticed by either one, a small, somewhat charred raccoon snuck out from Yamucha's car and scurried away.

* * *

No one was really surprised to come back to the lab and find it trashed. Aware that they had only a limited amount of time, the invaders this time had forsaken caution for the sake of speed, and many of Bulma's belongings were completely destroyed. Oddly, Yamucha had been treated with respect; his body had been laid out carefully on a table, his arms crossed on his blackened chest, as though prepared for his funeral.

The remaining Z-warriors regarded him in silence.

"Why did they do that?" Chaou-zu asked quietly.

"I don't know, Chaou-zu," answered Tenshinhan. "But I think I don't hate them as much because of it."

Piccolo snorted. "Maybe that's what they wanted," he said caustically, and waded into the room.

"Waded" was really the only term for it; all the furniture - save Yamucha's resting place - had been gutted and overturned, the filing cabinets emptied and dismantled, and even the light fixtures removed and crushed. It seemed everything in the room had been dismembered except for Yamucha, who lay serenely on his table like an island oasis.

"We... we need to bury him," Tenshinhan said quietly.

"Hey..." said Kuririn. "Where's Yajirobe?"

* * *

Yajirobe was having problems of his own.

Everything that night had happened so fast that even if he had been inclined to help, he would not have been able to; and by the time Kuririn flew off after the attacker, he had other things on his mind. He alone had seen where Yamucha's murderer had come from.

He had seen a raccoon turn into a warrior.

And so while everyone else was in Bulma's lab, sorting through wreckage and mourning their friend, Yajirobe was stalking the streets of Satan City, hot on the trail of a raccoon that wasn't. If it seemed like something unusual for him to do, that's because it was; Yajirobe had been struck with a sudden attack of courage, and the last time he could recall such an epiphany was when he had taken a mad swipe at Vejiita's rear end with his katana.

However, there was no question in his mind that this - slipping barefoot down deserted streets after something that might or might not be Saiyan - was by far the worst thing he had ever talked himself into doing.

The creature he was trailing suddenly turned and ducked into a building.

Making his way around to the back, Yajirobe did the same.

It was a good half hour before he emerged again, shaken and pale; what he now knew was enough to take away even his appetite.

* * *

That day on the Saiyan spaceship had been somewhat uneventful. While Yamucha was dreaming about the past, King Vejiita and his people were making plans for the future.

Gohan had been quite worried that the Saiyans had plans to continue in their cultural vocation - that is, clearing planets of sentient life to prepare them for sale. However, that was not their goal at all; apparently, they had been doing penetrative exploration - whatever that was - for so long that they didn't really want to do anything else.

"And what is involved in this exploration?" Vejiita asked.

"They go where no man has gone before," quipped Trunks, absolutely deadpan. Goten snickered explosively.

"Yes, that's just what we do," said Chive, looking with puzzled disapproval on Goten and Trunks. She was Ru Sa's right hand and mission commander, and so was given the floor for the moment. "We go to areas previously unexplored. It's simple, really; we find an area never mapped before and station the ship in as central a position as possible. Then we send out one-man pods, each assigned to explore a certain area. Once they have thoroughly explored their quadrant and returned with information on any populated planets, we land, check it out, and take any technology we think might be useful. If we have to fight, we do - and that happens more often than not. You'd be surprised how many people aren't thrilled with the idea of sharing their cultural wealth with us." She smiled coolly.

Vejiita smiled back. "I can imagine," he said. "When did my father send you on this mission?"

"You were four years old, my lord."

Vejiita narrowed his eyes. "Strange that Radditz never mentioned it to me. As my official care-taker and head general in my father's army, he was under strict orders to inform me of all such missions. It was the privilege and responsibility of my youth."

The other Z-warriors blinked at him. "But I thought - " began Gokuu.

"Quiet, Kakarotto," ordered Vejiita, and waited for a response from Chive.

Chive did not miss a beat. "General Radditz did not know. King Vejiita - your father - did not register us officially as on mission. The reason was that he sent us specifically to find technology to help him to defeat Freeza. Although I understand the way matters stood at the end, Freeza's power level reached some 18 million - even with our technology, we would not have had a chance." She continued to meet Vejiita's gaze, cold and calm.

Vejiita nodded and seemed to dismiss the issue.

"How old were you? Chive, you are at least a decade younger than I am."

Chive shrugged slightly. "I am second-generation; many of our original scientists died while still in space."

"Why did you return to Vejiita-sei when you did?"

Chive turned and looked at Ru Sa for the answer.

"We received a gamma class message log," he said.

"You received a what?" Gohan asked.

"A gamma class message log," Chive repeated, "Used only during emergencies. A batch of signals, all part of one conversation, that have been specially encoded to as to be unintelligible to the enemy but easily intercepted and interpreted as a whole by anyone with the proper equipment. Which we have."

Gohan nodded, trying to keep suspicion off his face. _Intelligent Saiyans,_ he thought. _No, more than intelligent; they're actually intellectually **inclined.** Still doesn't smell right._

Ru Sa picked up the thread. "The message log was very confusing; it involved the battle directives and communications from your father when he went up against Freeza. King Vejiita - your father - took on Freeza much sooner than planned; apparently your abduction, my lord, pushed him over the edge. Of course, by the time we got this information we were years out in space; even at top speed, we did not get back until now."

Vejiita nodded. "I do not see why you cannot continue. There must be systems in this part of the galaxy that you have not yet explored - yes? Then, go ahead and explore, with my blessing. I remind you, however - I am still in official capacity on a trial basis only. If I do not like what I see, then I will hand the seal on" - he fondled the medallion around his neck -"and return to earth. Understood?"

They nodded.

"Everybody back to your posts," he ordered, and that's just what they did - including the earthlings - leaving Vejiita alone in the conference room.

"Lying bastards," he said under his breath as last soldier went through and the door hissed shut behind him.

* * *

That night, Gohan once again had trouble sleeping. He walked the now familiar halls of the saucer ship, crossing over and over again the same ground in both the mental and physical sense.

All right, so maybe he _had_ only known six full-blooded Saiyans in his life; so maybe some of them were innately as intelligent as all these people seemed to be. Still, it bothered him; of the six he had previously known, only Paragus and Vejiita had shown anything like the kind of intellect these warriors showed, and Vejiita couldn't care less about technology and Paragus had merely viewed his formidable skills as the means to his revenge.

These Saiyans could not care less about revenge. Or death. Or carnage. They liked to spar, yes - but it only now occurred to Gohan that he had not actually witnessed any _fighting_ ; except for Ru Sa, this was the most peaceful group of warriors he'd ever seen. There was no inner friction at all.

Gohan shook his head; he was picking at straws, he knew. Vejiita would probably decide to stay, all the rest of them would go home to Earth, end of story, glory to God forever, amen.

Just then, a very strange sound crossed his ears. Gohan had never heard anything like it. Curious, he began to try to track it down.

The sound was coming from the corridor to his right, one that housed only living quarters. It seemed an odd combination of muffled voices and... something else. Sincerely hoping he was not going to interrupt somebody's intimate time, Gohan pressed on.

That second sound was clearer now. It had a strange sort of buzzing quality to it, an odd combination of sensuality and electricity. As he grew closer, it began to penetrate his body, sending vibrations across his skin and making him shudder with involuntary pleasure. The relaxation resulting from this was bizarre; the only thing he could compare it to was that kind of calm that comes after sexual release. And yet, there was something so invasive, so horrific about it -

His stomach turned. Unable to stop himself, Gohan fell to his knees and began to heave; he was fortunate to get none of it on himself, but his ungainly position - on his hands and knees and dripping bile - was somewhat out of kilter with his vision of dignified. His head began to pound, to swell, his skin to grow very hot and his vision to spin; he put his hands to the sides of his head and prepared to scream as his face burned away -

And then it stopped. The sounds stopped too, and in moments he felt just fine, if a little weak; even his stomach was back to normal. He rose somewhat shakily to his feet and turned. The door to his left was from where the sound had come. Taking a deep breath, he went in.

It took a moment for Gohan to realize where he was; it looked like a bedroom. However, there was nothing in it; nothing, except for a bed, a mirror, and an old wooden trunk in one corner. There was nobody the room either, at least as far as Gohan could tell. There was another door on the other side, so Gohan walked across the room - eerie in its sterile white and stillness - and went through that door.

He found himself in a shadowed maintenance corridor, one which he had not seen before. Large pipes and machinery were all around him; definitely a ideal place for an ambush. Closing his eyes, Gohan concentrated silently for a moment; he could sense nothing, but he knew better than to relax on account of that. Grateful for the "Mystic" training Rou Kaioushin had given him that negated his need to power up, Gohan went forward.

Just around the corner, he found the body.

The individual was one Gohan had never seen before; at least, he was reasonably sure that there were no Saiyans that old on the ship. The white hair had lost none of its fullness in death; it cascaded over the dried husk of a skull and onto the floor in wild spikes. The uniform, oddly, did not fit; it was far too big. Perhaps this warrior had come here to die, putting on his old battle garments one more time for memory's sake.

But that was nonsense - a Saiyan dying of old age, indeed - and on closer inspection, he decided this body had to have been here for a while. The skin was brittle and yellowed, the lips withered and pulled back from the teeth in a hideous death grimace. Gohan leaned closer. There was still glistening spittle on the teeth.

This man had been dead only minutes.

Feeling the first hint of fear, Gohan reached forward to see if the man was still warm, but the simple pressure exerted by his touch was more than the corpse could take. The husk cracked under his fingers, and yellowish fluid began to seep thickly from the cracks in the man's skin and dribble to the floor, where it puddled, steamed, and vanished. The body itself, now resembling nothing so much as the South American mummies Gohan had studied as a child, began to break apart on its own and lay in pieces like paper mache. The smell was truly awful.

"Disgusting, isn't it?" asked a voice.

Gohan jumped and looked up; in front of him, where he had sensed nothing, stood a man. The character was shadowed behind the pipes, but Gohan thought he knew who it was.

"Captain," Gohan said calmly. "Do you know what happened here?"

Ru Sa's silhouette shrugged. "What do you think, Kakarotto's son?" and he walked out of the shadows.

Gohan stared; Ru Sa had been big before, but the man who stepped into Gohan's view now seemed huge - he was bigger, stronger, and the power emanating from him was, for someone who was not a Super Saiyan, truly awesome. Where he had been hiding all that power a minute ago was mystery, but Gohan was not worried. He only wondered how it was that the Saiyan captain had managed such a dramatic increase in only a few -

He looked down at the body in front of him and thought he had an answer.

"How did you do it?" he said quietly.

"You'll find out," Ru Sa said, "in one way or another."

"Who was it?" Gohan said, standing. Fine - if Ru Sa wanted to fight, then they would fight. It wouldn't be much of a contest.

Ru Sa shrugged again and took a step closer. "Does it matter?" he asked.

Gohan sighed. "I guess not," he said. "Well, let's get it over with." Assuming left forward stance, he waited for the captain to make a move.

Ru Sa began to laugh. "Come and get me," he said, and spinning around - Gohan had to admit that the long hair did add a nice effect - took off into the darkness. Gohan could hear him laughing into the distance. He took off after him. They were heading into the center of the ship, the area where the main engine drives used to be before they got that wonderful upgrade on the planet Zivago. It was huge, dark, and empty.

Ru Sa zoomed into the air in the middle of the main room, not even glancing behind him to see if Gohan was there. Of course he was; where else would a superhero of Earth be?

The very idea made him feel like laughing some more, and so he did. Ah, youth - just blundered into anything without thinking at all. Not wanting to wait any longer, he spun around again and welcome Gohan with literally open arms.

Gohan stopped and sent a blast at Ru Sa. The captain didn't even try to dodge; he just took the hit square on and went flying back to the ground.

 _The moron is LETTING me injure him!_ thought Gohan. Apparently, having committed murder, the captain now wanted to die as cheerfully as possible.

Ru Sa wheezed at him from somewhere in the shadows below. "All right, hero, you got me. Gonna come down now and claim your prize?" And, incredibly, he laughed again.

 _He's nuts,_ Gohan summarily thought, and slowly flew down. He wasn't about to walk into a trap.

Ru Sa was standing - barely - by supporting himself against the wall; splotches of his blood darkened the shadows around him.

"What, you're not coming near me? Afraid?"

Gohan stopped about ten feet from Ru Sa; he didn't want whatever had happened to that nameless warrior out there to happen to him.

Ru Sa stopped laughing; his look, though still amused, grew predatory.

"You're the strongest, aren't you? Except for your father, you're the strongest."

Gohan nodded marginally. "They say I had 'nearly unlimited potential,' whatever that means," he said. "Rou Kaioushin trained me, and now I've reached it. For all it matters." Gohan sighed. "I'm sorry, Ru Sa - but I have to take you back. I don't think Vejiita will be very happy with you."

Ru Sa looked at him; the captain's eyes took on an expression that Gohan did not recognize, and for some weird reason, it scared him.

"You've made a mistake," the captain said smoothly, almost seductively. Gohan tensed.

"Oh? And what was that?"

Ru Sa bared his teeth.

"The assumption that you had to be in arms' reach," he said, and then before Gohan could move, before he had the chance to do anything, Ru Sa's arm shot out - much, much longer than it should have been - and changed shape. It suddenly became a two-pronged fork, and so quickly that even Gohan's eye could not follow it, shot forward into the dark toward Gokuu's eldest son.

Gohan moved, but not fast enough; the prongs sank deep into his flesh, and then Ru Sa twisted his arm - if it could still be called that - viciously. Gohan cried out as he felt his intestines twist, tangling around the thing in his side and damaging his organs. Ru Sa pulled back, and Gohan - hopelessly hooked - came flying toward him.

All this happened within the space of a second. If Gohan had been just a moment quicker, he could have blasted Ru Sa with ki on the way in, ending the battle once and for all. But he did not; the pain wrenching his insides and the shock at seeing what he had just seen rendered him numb for just a moment, and that was all Ru Sa needed. Suddenly, Gohan was being pressed right up against him, almost in a lover's embrace.

Ru Sa was wasting no time. He ripped his arm out of Gohan's side, reshaped it, and grabbed both sides of the younger man's head. Gohan could feel his own organs settling in unnatural positions inside; his own blood, from Ru Sa's hands, was dripping down his face.

Ru Sa pulled Gohan's head forward, his lips slightly parted, wearing a strange expression of pleasure, and in that split of a second Gohan knew he meant to kiss him.

He also knew, without knowing why, that that must not happen at all costs. He began struggling, trying not to be distracted by the insane sensation of his liver trying to slide out and onto the floor. He brought his own hands together just on either side of Ru Sa's head.

"BINSHOU FAIA!" he cried and blasted Ru Sa with both hands.

Tried to.

The second Gohan had opened his mouth to speak, Ru Sa's head did a quick change version of what his arm had done a moment before, slipping down and out of sight. Gohan blasted his own hands off.

Ru Sa waited until he had stopped screaming. "My turn," he said, and pressed his mouth against Gohan's.

Pain, sharp and slow moving, immediately began coursing through Gohan's body; his arms and legs grew weak, so weak he could barely even struggle. And then that awful humming sound started again, that cursed buzzing that had brought him in here to begin with, only this time it did not make him nauseated. It dulled the pain; it began to feel very good, a warm sort of numbness akin to alcohol. And like alcohol, it also numbed his brain. Gohan stopped struggling.

The whole ordeal only lasted ten seconds, no more. When Ru Sa dropped him and he began to regain the ability to think again, the only thing moving through Gohan's mind was a wonder that he was not dead.

Ru Sa stood over him, healed and stronger - but not as strong as he apparently thought he would be.

"Damn," he said, inspecting his biceps. "You stupid half-breed." He kicked Gohan in the side, producing a most satisfying _thump_. "Never works as well with hybrids," Ru Sa muttered to himself, taking further interest in the shape of his arms.

Gohan lay where he was, unable to move, barely able to breathe, his ears filled with the sound of his laboring heart. He could barely see, but he knew he was a far cry from the desiccated husk in the other room.

"Oh, poor Kakarotto's son." Ru Sa said and picked up Gohan almost tenderly, cradling his torn body. "Wouldn't want you to die just yet, now would we?" he quipped, and carried Gohan away. He walked for about two minutes before coming to an airlock.

"There we are," Ru Sa said, and unceremoniously dumped his broken body into the room. "I am sorry it had to end this way - I almost liked you, and that for me is a rare thing; but you just had to walk in on me at a really bad time. Which reminds me." Ru Sa walked away and disappeared for a moment. Gohan could not cry out - he had been trying, but it seemed his vocal chords had stopped working. So closing his eyes - his vision was gray and fuzzy anyway, and opening them was basically pointless. He mentally tried to call out _Father -_

He didn't see Ru Sa's booted foot coming. It caught Gohan in the head, on the right temple, and gave him a few blessed moments of painless black. When he awoke again, the remains of Ru Sa's earlier victim were beside him.

"You can call out all you want," Ru Sa growled. "It won't do you any good." Gohan really wanted to say "then why did you try to stop me," but his voice would not work and he was denied even the joy of last words.

So he did it telepathically.

 _You won't get away with this, Ru Sa,_ he sent. _You don't know my father._

Ru Sa paused; the absolute faith with which this was uttered was disturbing.

"Goodbye Gohan," he said, and closed the door. In a moment, Gohan and his withered companion were shot out into space. Gohan was more than weakened; his body was destroyed. He could not last in the vacuum of space as he used.

_Pan...Videl..._

His last thought was that it was cold. So very, very cold.


	7. Double-Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Suspicions are confirmed all around as Gokou processes a more permanent loss than he likes, Trunks contacts Earth, and Vegeta finally realizes just how special Bra is.

The next morning, Gokuu did not at first know there was a problem. As he rose and stretched however, he began to realize that there was more amiss with his stomach than just hunger; he had that strange, pit-of-the-gut feeling that he always got when there was something wrong with the ki in his surrounding area. Notwithstanding, Gokuu continued dressing himself and looked forward to breakfast; he may have been puzzled, but long ago he had learned to bow in submission to the Omnipotence of the Inevitable. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen, and he would wait for it to reveal itself in its own due time.

The odd thing was that whatever was wrong didn't seem to be wrong _now;_ it felt more like a bad residue from the night before.

He was nearly dressed when his intercom chimed. It had to chime twice more before Gokuu figured out it meant someone was at his door.

"Oh," he said, comprehending. "Come in!"

The door shished open, and Chive entered.

"Ohayoo, Chive!" Gokuu chirped.

"Kakarotto-san," she said, irritated by his good-morning cheer. "Vejiita-sama requests the honor of your presence alone in his chambers."

"Oh," said Gokuu, disappointed. "You mean before breakfast?"

The look Chive shot him could probably have stopped a clock; Gokuu, however, was unaffected.

"All right," he said with a sigh. "Just tell me where Vejiita is and I'll go see him there. Hey!" he added, brightening. "Maybe he'll have breakfast in his room today!"

Chive's face registered some small disgust as she pointed Gokuu down the hallway. "Over there - no, not there, there - take a left, and then another left, and then - oi, here - let me just take you."

Gokuu had never been hounded by the same investigative urges that so possessed his eldest son, and so as he followed Chive he quickly found himself in a section of the ship he had never seen before. At the end of the hallway was a large door.

"Kakarotto to see you, Vejiita-sama," Chive said respectfully into the intercom. There was no answering voice, but the door slid silently open. Inside was a huge room, almost completely unlit; a large, bracketed window on the opposite wall provided what small visibility there was. Chive bowed respectfully toward the shadows and retreated; Gokuu blinked at the shadows and stepped blithely into the room.

It took him a moment to locate his king; Vejiita was keeping his ki very, very low. Dark and vaguely familiar shapes sat in blocky silence all around the perimeter, and there seemed to be half a dozen chairs set at intervals in front of those shapes. Gokuu thought he knew where he was.

"Why, Vejiita," he laughed with delight. "You're staying in the auxiliary bridge!"

Vejiita snorted. "I didn't know your vocabulary possessed such big words, Kakarotto."

Gokuu walked further into the room, looking around him at all the control panels and the occasionally blinking lights. "Wow. How on earth did you get put in here?"

"Because of the space and privacy provided by the auxiliary captain's quarters attached to this bridge. Come here, Kakarotto. I have something to say." Vejiita, who had been facing the window, turned to face him. Dark or no, Gokuu could see enough of Vejiita's expression to detect extreme unhappiness with something.

"Ano... you're not angry with me, are you Vejiita?"

"What? Baka. No. Now come here."

Gokuu moved closer slowly, trying to sort out what he was picking up from Vejiita's ki. No hostility towards him - that was good - but to say that Vejiita was tense would be an understatement. More like ready to blow up.

"Did you have another dream about Bulma, Vejiita?" he asked quietly.

"I - no. Yes. It doesn't matter. Kakarotto, are you going to come here or am I going to have to grab you by the hair and -"

"No, _iie_ , Vejiita-san," said Gokuu affably, raising both hands in surrender. Obediently, he walked right up until his chin was inches from the top of Vejiita's forehead. "What is it, Vejiita?" he asked quietly, looking down but not daring to bend to eye-level; the last time he had done _that,_ Vejiita had attacked him just because he thought Gokuu was making fun of his height.

Vejiita took a deep breath. "I have made a mistake," he announced.

Gokuu's jaw dropped open.

"A what?" he said. "What did you say?"

Vejiita growled. "Don't make me repeat myself, Kakarotto; I'm in a bad enough mood as it is." He sighed. "I tell you this now because I am beginning to fear that my... underestimation... of the situation is going to bring harm to the children."

Gokuu cocked his head to one side and wrinkled his brow. _They're all I have left of Bulma_ seemed to come to him out of nowhere, and to the end of his days Gokuu could never be sure whether Vejiita had meant to communicate that to him or not.

"What do you mean, Vejiita?" Gokuu said quietly. "Is someone threatening you?"

"Not yet. Not directly. But I'm afraid that it has already brought harm to you and yours."

Gokuu looked puzzled; that sick feeling in his stomach increased. "What do you mean?" he asked again.

Vejiita waved at one of the objects in the dark. "I have asked the computer here to give me an update every morning of the status of everyone on this ship. Just in case. I had hoped..."

_\- underestimation_

_\- harm to the children_

"Kakarotto, I... I didn't know."

_..._ _harm..._

Gokuu knew.

Vejiita rubbed the sore spot between his eyes. "Kakarotto, I'm so sorry."

Just then an alarm went off, and something dark and cold seemed to explode under Gokuu's skin.

* * *

"Captain, I want an answer now! How could this have happened?" Vejiita was shouting. There was nothing unusual about Vejiita raising his voice _per se_ ; those who knew him well, however, knew that there was a difference between his semi-serious "fear-me-and-tremble" roar and his extremely serious "I-am-going-to-crush-your-head" roar.

This was most definitely the latter.

Behind him, Gokuu stood in silence with his one remaining son, his fists clenched and his jaw set and trembling. The earth-Saiyan's face was pale, tinged with green; he was unable to speak.

Vejiita had spoken to him intensely and briefly before they went to answer the alarm, and even in his shocked state Gokuu had grasped the urgency of Vejiita's plan. No one must know; no one must hear. Their discernment of the supposed Saiyans' lies must remain a secret, or the only advantage belonging to the good guys would be gone. Whoever or whatever had been able to take Gohan out must be immensely powerful, and they could not risk the lives of their other children.

And somehow, Gokuu had kept himself from going Super Saiyan whatever and blowing them all to Hell.

So it was that Gokuu stood, castrated, unable to say or do anything that was in his heart to do, most of which involved killing everybody on board that vessel. He watched the "Saiyans," these bastards with the wide and innocent eyes, deny as one any knowledge of Gohan's demise, and he came extremely close to attacking them anyway, possible danger be damned.

The only reason he did not was Goten. The boy must not meet the same fate as his brother.

In Gokuu's head, only one thought would solidify, over and over and over again: _the dragon balls... there are no dragon balls..._

He had never come so close to losing his mind.

* * *

Vejiita growled. His fists were clenched, and if the Saiyans did not know how much danger they were in from Gokuu, they certainly knew they were in danger from Vejiita.

"Last time, captain - and last chance. What. The HELL. Happened? People do NOT drag themselves to airlocks, vomiting and bleeding all over the floor, and then shoot themselves into outer space!"

Ru Sa was down on one knee, his beads of sweat on his face.

"My lord - "

"Don't you call me that! You have exactly two seconds before I blast you into oblivion!"

"My - "

"One!" counted Vejiita.

"We don't know!" Ru Sa shouted, his anxiety for his own life overcoming his natural poise. "We don't know what happened, and there is no way to find out. There is no security camera there, no record in the computer of anyone - including Gohan - logging in or out of the maintenance level. All we know for sure is he's gone and he was bleeding when he left and that he'd had a full dinner. We just don't know anything else!"

Vejiita hissed and narrowed his eyes, and a tightly formed ki ball began to glow in his hand.

Then Trunks spoke.

"Captain, I believe you have a direct responsibility to resolve this issue. The first thing you need to do is find out exactly WHEN Gohan was in the air lock; 'some time last night' will not do. Then, you need to use that time to help you figure out what section of space Gohan will be in. We can go back to that area and use the radar to search for him. If there's anything left of Gohan's body, finding it should be no problem. All we have to do is recalibrate the radar to Gohan's DNA; his blood should provide a perfect sample. Then, once we have his body, we can possibly determine something of what happened to him. For that matter," he said, thinking out loud. "We should see if there is some sign of other DNA in that airlock as well to give us an idea of who might have put him in there in the first place."

Vejiita blinked and turned, staring at his son. A strange look crossed his face, half of fury and half of pride.

"The boy's idea is solid," Vejiita pronounced, and there was an almost audible sigh of relief. "And if Gohan's body is not found within 24 hours, I will kill you all." He turned, his cape swirling, and marched up to his son. Trunks looked up at Vejiita, not flinching. He had never looked so much like his "future" counterpart before.

"And if you ever dare to supercede me like that in public again," Vejiita growled quietly. "I will kill you myself."

Trunks smiled; he spoke Vejiita-ese fluently.

"Yes, sir. And you're welcome."

Vejiita snorted and turned to Gokuu. "I need to go check on my daughter. Meet me in my quarters," Vejiita ordered Gokuu, and went away, cape billowing behind him. Gokuu needed a guiding hand from Goten to get him moving.

"Hey," Trunks whispered to Goten as he passed. "It'll be okay. I'll see you in your quarters after you get your dad where he needs to go."

Goten sniffled and nodded. He had his own problems, but they could wait. Of the two of them, Trunks had always been the leader, and Goten had learned to trust his judgment when things were serious. If there were a way to save Gohan - if he were still alive, which Goten _must_ believe - or, if the worst were true, and a means to avenge him was needed - well, either way, Trunks would know what to do. Pushing his unresponsive father in the direction of Vejiita's quarters, Goten dried his own tears and went to his room.

* * *

Bra was crying when Vejiita opened her door. He froze, all of his kingly composure made useless by this small, weeping girl. For just one moment, his mind cruelly replaced Gohan's lost, lifeless corpse with Bra's, and Vejiita's heart clenched.

"Damn," he muttered, entering her room and shutting the door behind him. "This family stuff is making me too soft."

Bra looked up.

"Otousaaaaaan!" and she charged at him, leaping into his arms and knocking him right over.

"Bra - what in the world is wrong with you?" Vejiita said as soon as he could catch his breath.

"S-s-son Gohan is deaaaaaaaad!!" she sobbed, clinging to him like a life raft.

Vejiita looked at her closely.

"Bra, how did you know that? You haven't even gotten breakfast yet."

Bra looked up at him and wiped her dripping nose on her sleeve. "I just knew," and she started sobbing again. Vejiita stiffly put his arms around her, characteristically uncomfortable even as he comforted.

"Bra - Bra, look at me - I need you to tell me what you know. What happened to Son Gohan? Can you tell me?"

Chest hitching, Bra looked up at him condescendingly. "He's dead," she said as though explaining a perfectly obvious concept.

Vejiita resisted a brief urge to shake her.

"Yes, Bra, I know that. But how? How did he die?"

Bra's tiny brow knit as she frowned in concentration. "He just... leaked."

Vejiita blinked. "You mean he bled?"

"No. He... it's like somebody stuck a vacuum inside him and sucked all his guts out." She sniffed indignantly. "Can I have breakfast now?"

Vejiita did not immediately answer her. His face had gone a deathly pale, and his teeth were bared in a shocked, vicious grimace.

Bra yanked on his cape. "Otousan? I'm hungry."

Vejiita swallowed hard and stood. "I'll - I'll make sure you get something to eat. Trunks will bring it." He turned and left, much more quickly than he had come in.

And, for the fourth day in a row, Bra sat in her room and waited for someone to feed her.

* * *

Gokuu was hunched in one of the deck chairs, his face pinched and drawn, when Vejiita came in. Gokuu was eight years Vejiita's junior, but at this moment in time, he looked much, much older.

"Kakarotto?" asked Vejiita quietly.

Gokuu declined to answer.

Vejiita sighed and closed his eyes.

 _Kakarotto,_ he thought at Gokuu. _Kakarotto, I may know what happened to your son._

Apparently, this was the wrong thing to say. Gokuu looked up at him with what could only be described as hopeless disgust, and he said, "Let me guess - you made a mistake. Right? Underestimated the situation?"

Vejiita grit his teeth and held his temper. He needed Gokuu's help, and the man was not even capable of hearing him right now.

"Kakarotto, we have a legend on my planet. Had a legend. It was concerning the Tsufuru."

Gokuu snorted. "Those people who underestimated you Saiyans and died. Seems to be a lot of that going around."

Vejiita forgave the comment.

"Gokuu - I have something to tell you about Bra."

Gokuu waited and looked at him the way one would look at a dubious stranger.

Vejiita sighed again; it was getting to a bad habit, he thought. Then again, too much intimacy with Kakarotto would do that to anybody.

"She looks human; very human. And physically, as you know, she is weaker than my son. But she is not without her own special abilities." He snorted wryly. "I'd guess she doesn't know that I know, and that Bulma didn't know that I knew, either, although how they thought they could hide something like that from me. You know, Kakarotto, it's funny - if there had actually still been a Vejiita-sei, she would be something more to be proud of than even my own son. She is Sheinrei-Tsu."

Gokuu frowned, translating in his head. "A spirit thief?"

Vejiita smiled; Gokuu wasn't looking quite so mad any more. "Yes, that is the literal translation. But it is a term that could only have been applied to a few hundred persons in the entire history of the Saiya-jin. It has to do with a special kind of psychic ability; it's not telekinetic, or even telepathic, exactly. In fact, they usually have - ah, had - trouble communicating from mind to mind the way you and I do. But they were invaluable, nonetheless."

Vejiita looked slightly introspective as he told his tale; talking about Vejiita-sei, which he did not do often, always made him forget the present. And listening to it - which Gokuu did not do often either - made him forget his pain.

"She can... _connect_ with people, Kakarotto - not to communicate, as I said, but with proper training, she would have the power to simply sit in her room and vicariously experience someone else's life without them ever knowing she was there." He looked up, coming back to the present. "They were not often used, the Sheinrei-Tsu; it was always dangerous. If the Sheinrei-Tsu concentrates too hard on a person, they actually could - in a way - insert themselves inside of their victim and... well, steal their soul. I don't know how else to explain it. Probably because of the danger involved in using them, Sheinrei-Tsu and their talents were mostly reserved for use by the Royal family. But... I'm getting off the topic. Kakarotto," he said, looking as steadily as possible into Gokuu's burning eyes. "I don't know how it happened, but Bra was connected with Gohan when he died."

Now Gokuu finally looked at him - _really_ looked at him, and some of his characteristic concern for others finally crept back into his face.

"No! That's awful, Vejiita! Poor Bra - is she all right?"

Vejiita nodded. "Yes. But she told me something that..." he stopped.

"Frightens you?" asked Gokuu quietly. Vejiita did not answer, and he did not need to.

"It has to do with an old legend regarding the Tsufuru," Vejiita began again, and this time, Gokuu did not interrupt.

* * *

**Interlude 7.1: Trunks**

Trunks walked as nonchalantly as possible to Gohan's room. _I am the crown prince,_ he told himself firmly. _If anybody asks me what I'm doing I can tell them to bug off. Or maybe just say I'm doing investigating on my own. It won't be a problem._

He didn't sound convinced.

Gohan's room was as he had left it; the bed unslept in, the few books and papers he had brought scattered casually on the desk. Trunks wasn't quite sure what he was looking for; he merely hoped that he could find something that would help him bring justice. That was really what Trunks wanted; not revenge, but justice.

Trunks had to wonder briefly where such a noble urge came from, when a small, insistent beeping sound came from Gohan's bed. Thinking it sounded like the hailing alarm of Freeza's old scouters, Trunks threw back the pillow.

There was a small round device there, and damned if it didn't look like the old dragon radar. Throwing caution to the wind, he succumbed to a child's curiosity and started pressing buttons. He was very surprised to see Kuririn's face appear, slightly distorted, in the screen, but not nearly as surprised as Kuririn.

"Wha... Trunks! Where's Gohan?"

Trunks didn't answer right away; he had the distinct feeling that this device was one of the reasons for Gohan's death - Gohan's death at the hands of a killer who was most certainly still at large. Knowing this, opening his mouth and talking to Kuririn was one of the bravest things he ever did.

"Kuririn - Gohan's dead. Somebody killed him and put him out the airlock."

Stunned silence met this. Kuririn turned and spoke to someone off screen. There was what appeared to be a scuffle, and Piccolo's face suddenly appeared.

"Gohan? Dead? Are you sure?" Trunks' heart grew even heavier; the Namek's voice was rough with grief.

"Yes, Piccolo-san. I am sure. Although we don't have his body, so I suppose that he might... no. I won't pretend with you. I believe he is dead."

Piccolo looked grimly at him for a moment, nodded, and handed the communicator back to Kuririn.

"Trunks, that's not the only problem. Yamucha's dead, too. Some of those Saiyans - or whatever they are - stayed behind here, and they were going through Bulma's lab. They killed Yamucha."

Trunks inhaled deeply, forcing himself to stay calm. Not for the first time, he wished he could talk frankly with his father.

"All right. Here's what we're going to do," he said. "The lab -"

There was a commotion in the background, and Kuririn's head disappeared for a moment. He came back. "Trunks, Yajirobe just came back; he's got - " and the communicator went blank.

Trunks sat on Gohan's bed, no longer concerned about being caught, and waited for Kuririn to get back to him. With a patience neither of his parents had ever possessed, he waited, and in his mind, a strange hypothesis seemed to be forming.

In a few minutes, the thing beeped again and Kuririn reappeared. He was restless, breathless, frightened.

"Trunks, they're not Saiyans. They like nothing anybody's ever seen before, and they can change their shapes." Trunks nodded, mentally noting that he would have to go and see what else his sister had observed that he had chosen to ignore.

"Yajirobe followed one of them, the one who killed Yamucha, and they have a building in town. They're right in the middle of Satan City, for crying out loud, and they've got a small space ship in there, and... Yajirobe said that they didn't speak in any language he knew; it didn't sound like Saiya-jin. But there was one word he did understand, and they said it over and over again - it was your name. It was Trunks."

Trunks narrowed his eyes, looking as much like his father as Bra did her mother. "My name? Or my counterpart's name?"

Kuririn paused. "I don't know. I don't think there was a way to distinguish - what are you saying? That they were talking about Mirai no Trunks? Why would they be doing that? It makes no sense."

Trunks' lips compressed into a thin line. "I don't know, Kuririn, but it makes just as much sense for them to be talking about me. Listen; you know that Okaasan kept all her files color coded."

"Trunks, this place is a mess right now, I don't think we can find - "

"Just listen to me, Kuririn," Trunks ordered, the tone of cool authority in his voice immediately checking any further discussion. "She didn't keep this in her cabinets. Go to where she kept her computer."

The view on the little screen bounced up and down as Kuririn did what he was told. "I'm there," he said. "What now?"

Trunks closed his eyes, envisioning the room. "The computer console - is it still there?"

"No," said Kuririn.

"Good. That much easier. Can you see where it was?"

Kuririn looked. "Um... yes. The floor where it was is a little discolored."

"Look under the floor board that is in the exact center of where the console used to be."

"Um, okay," Kuririn said, swallowing any discussion. Trunks' face brooked no argument.

Kuririn's reaction was energetic.

"Hey - whoah! Guys, come here and look at this!" Other voices came from off-screen; "Whoa - Kuririn's found something!" "Do you think that's what they were looking for?" "What is it, let me see!"

Trunks tuned them all out, pressed his forefinger and thumb to the place between his eyes, and tried to think. Something - something someone had said - no, that wasn't right, something he had seen...

Kuririn came on again. "Hey Trunks? We found it. It seems to be a file with all the information Mirai no Trunks would give her about the future. I don't know why she didn't just keep it with the rest of her stuff."

"Because it's got scientific information that doesn't exist in our time," Trunks said. "She knew it was important to keep it hidden until it was time for the world to know about it, or else she would alter the time-line again." Trunks closed his eyes, relying on his near-photographic memory. "Kuririn, there should be a small blue-ish purple tab, like the color of my hair. I want you to open the folder to that section. Got it?"

"Yeah. I've got it."

"Read it to me, please."

Kuririn cleared his throat and began to read. "Extracted and Observed Properties of Junsei-Aion under the conditions of - "

But Trunks wasn't listening. "Kuririn!" he interrupted excitedly. "Read that again!"

Kuririn blinked, but did as he was told. "Extracted and Observed Properties of Junsei-Aion under the conditions of - "

Trunks never even heard the rest of the sentence. His mind, although pleased at landing on the correct hypothesis, was completely thrown into shock at its own acumen. "They're in the wrong place!" he said, amazed, and Kuririn stopped reading.

"What?" he asked.

Trunks looked at him, eyes wide. "I said they're in the wrong place. Or should I say... the wrong time?"

The view on the communicator jostled and Piccolo's face appeared once more. "What do you mean, Trunks?"

"The junsei-aion - perfect iron - that was one of my mother's inventions in the future. It doesn't come from outer space. But the Saiyan ship I'm on right now is made of perfect iron!"

"Trunks," said Piccolo reasonably. "That doesn't mean anything. They've probably have had some version of perfect iron - or whatever you call it - in Freeza's empire for decades."

"But not by that name," insisted Trunks, knowing he was right and sure the others would see it too. "He specifically called it 'junsei-aion' - and that was my mother's own name for it, no other. Trunks said she would have made the time machine out of it but was afraid that its energy-absorption qualities would make such a small vessel impractical to charge. But on a bigger vessel, like this one..."

Piccolo nodded. "I see where you're going. So they're possibly from Mirai no Trunks' future - but what are they doing here?"

Trunks shook his head. "That, I don't know. And I don't know how to find out, either." He suddenly felt tired, more tired than he ever had in his life.

Piccolo nodded again. "You have made a good start, Trunks. We know where they are hiding in Satan City, and we will proceed there right away to see what we can find. You work on your end, but be careful. Don't push; we are in no position to help you if you get into trouble, and would not see you end up like Gohan."

"Okay, Piccolo-san," Trunks agreed respectfully, and he turned off the communicator.

Taking the communicator with him, Trunks went to Goten's room - comfort from a friend was definitely needed. And Bra - oh, hell, Bra hadn't eaten yet. Feeling a million years old, he went to his meeting with Goten, wondering what, if anything, he could do that would be of any good at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a note: I'd thought it was obvious why Vegeta would bring Bra with him on this ship, but on re-reading this, it isn't obvious at all. 
> 
> Oops.
> 
> Simple answer: he already lost one blue-haired beauty in his life. He's not losing another, and the very idea of leaving her with a bunch of Earth-bound idiots who CLEARLY couldn't keep a mushroom alive made zero sense to him. He thought she'd be safer with him, plain and simple.
> 
> Oops.


	8. Weirdness Abounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dende makes a discovery, and Vegeta tells a Saiyan scary story - after dealing with Chive's attempt to get closer.

Reep sat in a circle of Nameks, showing all his teeth in a ferociously jolly grin and occasionally flinging his limbs in the air just on general principle. _His_ \- they had given him a gender specific pronoun, just as they had given him a name; to the Nameks it was merely the type of assignation they would give to one another for ease of conversation, but to Reep, it was a phenomenon. He had never been happier in his life.

Dende knelt over the small pile of papers and wood, attempting without much success to focus his energy enough to start a fire. Dende was a healer, not a fighter; his power simply was not sufficiently incendiary to light the flame. Moot knelt beside him.

"Here sir," he said in a light, quiet tone that Dende himself would have used once. "Let me help." And between the two of them, the paper began to smolder.

The Nameks - all of whom were gathered in that room - moved closer to the fire; the vote to remain inside the building rather than go outside to that nothingness had been as unanimous as it had been silent. Anything was better than out there.

"You'd almost think they planned it this way," said Muuri, leaning back and relishing the sensation of warm, red light shining through his eyelids. "What would be the chances of us all - every last one - being healers?"

Dende shrugged and moved back; the heat from the quickly growing blaze was more intense than expected. "I just would like to know how these Saiyan-types and the extra dragon ball are connected."

"Are you sure that's really what it is?" asked Muuri, lazily observing the room for the first time in the light. "It may look like a dragon ball, but it certainly does not behave that way."

Dende sighed and declined to answer.

"And while we're asking questions," Muuri mused, "it might be good to wonder about time. From our calculations, we've both been here the same amount - two days. And yet the dates don't fit; we 'disappeared' fully two weeks before you did."

Dende shook his head. This was giving him a headache.

"And for that matter," continued Muuri in the same mildly curious tone, "what is that?"

Dende looked up. On a desk in the far corner of the room, partially hidden by haphazard bric-a-brac and overturned furniture, was a small, metal device. It stuck out like a live thing, gleaming and out of place.

"Good question," answered Dende.

"Ooooooh," marveled Reep. "Maybe from Bulma the Wise."

"Bulma the what?" repeated Muuri, but Dende was already moving and didn't answer him. Taking a chair leg with fire at one end to light his way, he pushed between broken filing cabinets and jumbled furniture and made his way over. The little machine was made of some metal he did not recognize, but a moment of inspection at least showed what the device itself was. He seemed to recall seeing something like this when he was on earth.

"Dende," called Muuri through the gloom. "What have you found?"

"Well," said Dende. "I think it's an audio recorder of some sort." He caressed the casing pensively. "This metal is so strange; it feels like the outside of this building. Almost vibrates when I touch it."

Muuri scratched his head. "Now, why would someone go to all the trouble to leave that there?"

Dende looked up. "Leave it here? On purpose? Could it be a trap?"

Muuri looked down at Reep; the small creature seemed not in the least bit worried. "Nope," Muuri said confidently.

Still mechanically stroking the metal, Dende brought the thing over to the fire for a better look.

"What is it?" asked Moot, reaching out to touch it. "It feels alive."

"Yes, yes!" said Reep. "From the Real." Muuri and Dende looked at one another, nodded in silent agreement, and Dende pushed the "play" button.

_"It is the year 792. The earth and everything in it is now gone, and so is everything else, as far as I can tell. I'm beginning to think I made a mistake by saving us; there can be no winning, no resolution, and the only thing I've saved anybody for is dissolution."_

The voice on the tape was female, articulate, and completely without hope. It was also, without a doubt, Bulma's.

_"My invention of the Junsei-Aion has turned out to be much more important than I had imagined; for reasons God only knows, it is the only substance resistant to Gero's poison. Everything not at least laced with the iron is just... is gone when the Black touches it, and so I went ahead and made the stupid decision to rebuild the Capsule Corporation and everything in it out of Junsei-Aion. I even found a way to blow glass with the Perfect Iron in it, so we could have windows. I don't know why, but Trunks felt windows were so important." The voice choked slightly. "Of course, by the time I got the windows in, Trunks was already dead."_

There was a short pause, just long enough to make the listeners wonder if there was no more, and then Bulma spoke again. She had regained control.

_"The Satan City council went ahead with its plan to try to implement a form of my Junsei-Aion in what they called 'the Canopy,' a huge, stupid thing of iron-laced glass. I told them it was too big, that it wouldn't be able to support its own weight, and I was right; the Canopy cracked on the first day. The irony of it is, the Black didn't get through that way. It learned a new trick and came through the ground to get at people. I can only thank God that so many were already long dead from the androids and didn't have to go through this."_

She paused again, and in the interim Dende mused, "Cracks in the sky. Of course." Muuri shushed him.

_"Personnel update: Roshi is gone now, too. I had hoped, when he went away, that he'd come back - that he wouldn't leave me - but now I realize he never intended to come back in the first place. He went to 'make his peace with God,' he said, to meet his fate, and I can't really blame him; he went as only a man who faces living forever in the midst of disillusionment could._

_"Oolong has passed away in his sleep as of last Tuesday; if his undisturbed covers were any indication, he went with no unease._

_"Mr. Satan,"_ and she paused again. When she continued, it was more slowly, with very careful control. There was bitterness as well as loss in her voice. _"Mr. Satan has taken the short way out. I had thought that anyone who could still face every day cheerfully even though he went from being mobile and strong to almost completely crippled by the androids would be able to take anything, but when poor Bee went into the Black, he just stopped smiling. I found him today, with a knife in his hand and his throat slit. God only knows how he managed it with only one arm and 1/3 of its mobility available, but he was always a very determined man. I certainly know nobody helped him with it, because now that he's gone, I am the last living being in the universe."_

Again a pause; again the Nameks waited.

 _"Everyone around me has died in or because of the Black, except for Oolong, and at this point I don't even think there's a Heaven left for him to go to. The Black can't get me here, I know; I built this place to withstand it, and for what it's worth I can say that I've finally reached one of my life goals: my genius has surpassed that of Gero's."_ There was a moment of silence, and the center of the silence was cut by one, single sob. She was weeping.

 _"They say - or they said,"_ she continued, her voice strained, _"that some people are just born with bad luck. Maybe that's so; and maybe some planets are made that way, and maybe even entire dimensions. I don't know; maybe even the gods. I never would have thought that I was capable of believing such a thing, but now, at the end... I... it's just not fair!"_ Her voice had begun to take on the hysterical edge of shouting, and that would not do; she stopped and once again regained her composure.

 _"I don't really want to stay,"_ she said in clinical tones _, "and try as I might I cannot think of a good reason. I have decided to leave this brief record to serve as testimony to what happened, in case someone from Somewhere Else should ever find this place, and then I will go to join Roshi. He, at least, I think died in peace."_

And that was the end. Muuri was silently weeping.

"My, friend," Dende turned to Reep addressing him gently, "may I ask - where did you come from?"

Reep shook his head sadly; big, glistening tears swelled in his protruding eyes and dropping to the ground without ever touching his cheeks.

"Old," he said. "Old. Created since the Beginning of Real. Don't know how - made knowing everything. Already knew about Bulma the Wise, who tried and failed, and Trunks the Mighty, who went to fight the Black and was swallowed. And the ball - " Reep nodded toward the thing sitting on Dende's lap like a garishly colored beach ball - "and the End. Know everything, but before you have been all alone. Waiting for you."

Moot looked up. "For how long?" he asked.

"Forever," said Reep, and hung his head.

"I just want to know one thing," said Muuri. "What is the Black? And if it did, as Bulma said, destroy everything, then where did it go?"

No one cared to answer him.

* * *

Vejiita had given up on trying to plot out a logical course of action. Sighing and feeling quite useless, he sat back and rubbed his eyes; he'd been staring at that damned computer screen all morning. To say there was no sign of Gohan was an understatement; they had found where the unfortunate boy had exited the ship - his blood was still floating in space - but then it was as though he simply vanished. A thorough DNA scan of the area had produced nothing, which was patently impossible. Everything about this was impossible. If the ghost of Broli had suddenly risen from the depths of Hell and confessed to eating Gohan's corpse while singing _o Solo Mio_ at the top of his lungs, Vejiita would hardly have been surprised.

His intercom buzzed.

"Come in,: he said distractedly, not really caring at this point if it was the murderer or not.

The door shished open and there stood Chive.

"My lord Vejiita," she said respectfully. Vejiita turned to look at her.

"You look nice," he said almost before thinking. She was wearing a kind of casual soldier's gear, a white gi-like thing sashed loosely around her waist. For some reason, her presence was making him uncomfortable. He swiveled his chair back toward the computer console. "What is it you want, Chive?"

"Only to see that your... needs... are taken care of, my lord," she said, and her tone left little doubt as to what she meant. Vejiita looked at her.

"What? Have you gone mad?"

Chive had the decency to look embarrassed. "Well - no, my lord. You know, as king, it is your right to - "

"I know what my rights are, baka," Vejiita said. "I don't care to take advantage of them right now. Go and be profligate at somebody else."

He turned to the computer screen again, ending the discussion. He glanced back; Chive was still standing in the doorway.

"What is it?" he said, irritated. "I told you, I don't want - "

"Perhaps it is not so much a question of what you want as what you need," she said, managing to sound coolly efficient and seductive at the same time.

Vejiita snorted. "Was that supposed to be a clever answer? I hope not, because my six-year-old daughter could probably come up with a better one."

"I am very capable, sir." Chive sounded slightly offended.

"Oh, I have no doubt of that," Vejiita replied caustically.

"My lord, I will be blunt," Chive said. "With, of course, your permission." Vejiita sighed deeply; he was not in the mood for a moral dilemma.

"I could just order you to go away," he said.

"Yes, you could," Chive agreed sedately.

Vejiita sighed and closed his eyes; family life really had left him too soft.

"If I let you speak your peace, will you leave?" he asked.

Chive hesitated. "Well, I - yes, if that's what my lord wants."

"What I want is for everybody to go away and leave me alone, but I don't - " _I don't want to infuriate anybody who just might be a ruthless, shape-changing killer,_ flitted through his mind, but his mouth quickly rejected it. "- want to be bothered by anybody right now. I am extremely busy."

Chive bowed low at the waist; Vejiita noted with some annoyance that her gi gapped open most immodestly as she did so. "Then I will leave you alone, my lord," she said. "For as long as you care to be so. My offer - and its explanation - await your convenience." With that, she turned and left.

Vejiita's expression was one of disgusted incredulity. Not giving Chive another thought, he turned back to his computer again and tried to figure out where the hell Gohan had gotten to.

He did not see Chive's own expression melt into one of fury the moment she left the room. "Pheromones still aren;t Bulma's," she muttered, and marched off after her own pursuits.

* * *

Gokuu walked slowly down the hall towards his room, chewing slowly over what Vejiita had told him. His head was hurting from the effort.

Everything Vejiita had told him was true; he had no doubt of that. This bizarre rumor, akin to boogey-men and Big Foot, was one concerning the survival and eventual revenge of the planet Vegeta-sei's original owners: the Tsufuru. As a rumor, it had persisted on that planet for a while - at least since 720 when the Saiyans had begun to make their move to claim the planet for themselves. Every Saiyan child had heard it at least once in his or her life: the story that supposedly, the Tsufuru were not all killed; that there were some who were actually smart enough not to fight back, but instead went and hid deep underground - and there concocted a most devilish scheme.

These people - these Tsufuru - actually mutated their own bodies.

As little as a true Saiyan warrior regarded his life when it came to battle, he knew well enough to treasure the thing that was his body. To take care of it, for it was his tool, to value it, for it was his pride, to harden it, for it was the brilliance and pinnacle of his race. To actually bring harm to one's own body was more than horrific - it bordered on religious taboo.

Yet, that is just what these Tsufuru did. They infected their own genes with an altered form of a microbe, a bio-weapon developed on one of the planets the Saiyans had already conquered. The bug worked simply and effectively; it dissolved one's genes. It was something so horrible that even the Saiyans knew it had to be stamped out of existence, and they did just that - destroying the entire planet in the process.

One would have to be mad to purposely infect one's self, and yet this was just what the brilliant but amoral Tsufuru had done. They had mutated the mutagen and then infected themselves one and all - supposedly to the effect that it merely slackened their DNA, but did not completely dissolve it. And they could change shape. Affect their actual genetic structure to mimic whatever they wanted. Their revenge, it seemed, was imminent - but there was one problem.

They could not hold their new forms.

Tsufuru after Tsufuru eventually contracted the original infection and died, often melting horribly and slowly as they did so. It seemed their profane rebellion had come to an fitting and most poetic end. But then - horror upon horrors - the Tsufuru found yet another way. They discovered that their new bodies had enhanced properties only glimpsed at in their former selves.

Tsufuru, you see, so the legend goes, were actually only a little bit more energy than matter; it was one of the reasons that they were physically so weak and the Saiyans had beaten them so easily. When they made love, for instance, it was for them truly a joining; their inner selves merged, and the energy they shared was their very souls.

Supposedly, one of the Tsufuru had found out a way to actually drain that soul - that energy - from other beings. In doing so, he discovered a hard yet wonderful fact: the new energy he drained not only made him stronger, it also postponed the dissolution of his DNA and kept his body from running all over the place like melted syrup.

The more he drained, the less like butter he became. Until finally - so states the myth - he reached a plateau of stability. And then, he did the unthinkable; he made himself look like a Saiyan and went out to join society.

So, there it was; be careful, boys and girls, because if you're not good the evil shape-changing Tsufuru will take on your worse fear - he can read your mind, didn't we tell you that? - and come to get you. Because he's still alive today, and hiding, and he only wants one thing: to get revenge by stealing bad little boys' and girls' souls.

Utter poppycock, of course; even if there _had_ been such a disease - which was highly unlikely; no record of such a thing existed - the chances of Tsufuru surviving, mutant, in such a society for so many years was zero to none. Until today's incident and Bra's revelation, Vejiita had believed just that.

Gokuu still wasn't quite sure what to think; he'd picked up definite undertones of nearly forgotten fear from Vejiita; of recollection of sleepless nights, waiting breathlessly for the wicked Tsufuru to come out from under the bed so he could fight it and show his power. Vejiita had stopped being even remotely afraid of them by the time he was four; at one point he'd wanted nothing more than to see one so he could crush its face for being disrespectful to its own body. Of course, this had never happened, and the story for Vejiita had faded the way Santa Claus had eventually faded for Gohan.

Vejiita thought that at least one - maybe all - of the beings on this ship could be Tsufuru.

Gokuu, in his own instinctive way, had thought of something else. There was a different timeline with Trunks; several of them, in fact. Well, what if there were an alternate time-line with the Tsufuru? What if somewhere there were thousands of them out there, all waiting and looking for Saiyans so they could have their revenge?

One simple question; if any of that was true, then why were they - Gokuu and Vejiita - standing there unmolested? Why had only Gohan died?

None of it made sense, unless of course it was more than simple revenge they were after.

What that could be, Gokuu did not know - and to be honest, he did not want to find out. Right now, he had only one thought in his shocked, exhausted brain; to get to Goten and protect him at all costs. He did not know if the Tsufuru were real or not, but he did know one thing: any monster that wanted to go after his youngest son would have to go through him first, and said monster would be in for a surprise.


	9. Dende's Instruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Nameks finally spot a clue; the Z-Warriors deal with the reality of mortality; Ru-Sa gets desperate; and Bra decides it's time to do a little sleuthing of her own.

Moot held the dragon ball up to The Canopy, allowing Dende to bravely inspect the jagged cracks up close. The ball, apparently, was the reason for the strange half-light that had been trained on the Kami his whole time here; as long as he held it, he could see just a little bit. No longer thinking the ball to be dangerous, he'd given it to Moot to hold for a while - and been amazed at what he saw. The ball reacted differently with different persons; Dende was lit in a sourceless, dim spot light, Muuri gave off a warm, comfortable heat, and Moot... well, Moot _glowed_. Light began to pour from his skin, from his eyes, filtering the air around him and making even his clothes sparkle. Reep alone had not been struck in awe at the sight of this transfiguration.

"Very pure, he is," said Reep, and hopping up the Namek, began to sing. "Pure of heart, and pure of will; making sleep and slumbers still. Slumber not, to 'venge, to die; rage is pure as love is high." Humming happily, he began rubbing himself against Moot like a contented cat. Moot giggled and held the dragon ball above his head.

Dende looked with wonder at this; in the glowing light of the dragon ball, even Reep seemed threaded with beauty.

"What is going on here?" he wondered aloud, and Muuri answered him.

"I don't know," he said, "but I am quite sure that no one has ever seen it before." Then, as if realizing that statement was stupid without context: "We need to ask Reep what he's singing. Have you been listening to him? I think he's giving us clues." Dende turned to look at him, unconsciously moving to the rhythm of Reep's humming.

"You think so?" he asked quietly. "Yes," he answered himself. "Yes, you must be right. I hate to interrupt this little bonding session, but... Reep?"

Reep stopped singing and turned towards him. "Yes, oh Kami mine?" he said, sounding unnervingly like Katherine Hepburn in _Little Women_.

"What are you singing?"

Reep smiled his impossible smile again and said, "The words."

Muuri choked back a laugh.

"Ah... yes Reep," said Dende, wondering what in hell Muuri could find that was so funny about all of this. "But what words are they? Are they important to what we're doing here? To saving the Real?"

Reep closed his eyes and began to sway from side to side. "To save the Real," he said meditatively - rhythmically - and the Nameks present were suddenly filled with a sensation, as of powerful music only felt and not heard. "To save the All," continued Reep, slightly louder. "To save yourselves," he said quietly the third time. "...you must learn the Prophet's tongue. Words he has left, to guide you to him; words on the wall of Time." Reep continued swaying for a moment, and his audience was unable to suppress a shudder of inevitability. Vision filled them, vision hazy and indistinct, yet superimposed over their reality as if it were fake and the vision were Real.

And just as suddenly as he had started, Reep stopped swaying and sidled happily back to Moot, cooing softly as the Namek petted him. The others came to their senses slowly, almost unaware that they had been entranced.

Dende turned to Muuri. "What... what was that?"

"I think we just got a glimpse into our friend Reep's head," said Muuri, watching Moot giggle as Reep touched him. "It hurt."

Dende nodded. "Yes. It hurt. But I think I understand what I saw."

And so they ended up outside, using Moot's glow to search the wall, because Dende could not get the vision out of his head - a vision of white, scraggly letters, somehow inscribed _inside_ of the false sky they called the Canopy.

* * *

**Interlude 9.1: Vejiita's Child**

Bra sat alone in her room, no longer waiting for the breakfast that had not yet come. She knew Trunks would bring it to her eventually; he was just busy right now, trying to find the man who had caused Gohan's murder. She knew; she had been _with_ Trunks since early that morning.

Son Gohan would have been proud of her; she was learning how to connect with people now without being near them. Now, she was trying to find the person who had killed him. She had thought, really, that it was going to be easy. She'd caught a glimpse of him through Gohan's mental eyes when it had happened, and she knew what he felt like; now it was just a matter of skimming the surfaces of the different people on the ship - kind of like surfing TV channels - to find the right one.

The problem was these people were nearly impossible to lock onto. Finding her daddy had been easy enough; but then, he had always been transparent to her. She knew when he hated to look at her, even though she had not known why until Trunks explained it; she even knew how scared he was when he thought the Tus... the T... the Tsuf-something were going to get her. Were going to get them all.

She had begun to skim the minds of the others - the _Others_ \- on this ship, but was so frightened at what she found there that she had instinctively pulled back. They weren't like anything she had ever seen before - not even on earth, where she had, before knowing how she did it, once accidentally connected with an earthworm. She got the strange feeling that, in fact, if she were to be _with_ any of these people for any real amount of time, she risked losing herself - and not the other way around. They didn't seem to be all _there,_ somehow; not physically, anyway. They were hard to gasp onto, ethereal, wispy.

Bra did not know anything about the physical and energy-conducting properties of the creatures her father thought were Tsufuru, but she did know that they were somehow more advanced psychically than she could ever hope to be, and that scanning their minds was a huge risk - no way around it.

She concentrated on Gohan's face for a moment - Son Gohan, who had shown her such kindness - and closing her eyes, began to focus on Ru Sa, the Captain of the Guard.

* * *

Trunks sat and concentrated at his desk. He had, of course, disregarded Piccolo's warning and begun to do his own investigation full blast. His first step had been to send Goten to comfort Gokuu. His second act, unknown to him, had been eerily similar to Gohan's; he had crept around the ship like an escaped convict until he collected two samples of DNA: one definitely Saiya-jin and the other definitely Not. Now he was in his room, and had fed his samples into the computer. What he'd hoped he'd find was not there; the computer initially insisted that both samples actually WERE Saiyan.

The odd thing was that this only lasted for some twenty minutes.

After that point in time, following some instinct, Trunks had checked the samples again, and found that the Other sample had began to change; after fifteen more minutes, it was not even recognizable, and his computer did not have anything that corresponded even roughly to its genetic structure. Not very helpful, all told.

However, this did settle one thing for sure - these aliens were not Saiyan, and more importantly, never had been. Trunks had no idea why that last bit was so important to him.

He leaned back, that much of his curiosity satisfied, and tried to think of what else he could do. He was still concentrating when he heard the heavy, running footsteps approaching his door.

Curious, he peeked out.

Ru Sa was tearing down the corridor, and nodded only briefly to Trunks as he passed. His expression was less than pleased.

 _I wonder what's eating him?_ Trunks thought to himself as the Captain ran by.

* * *

Ru Sa pounded down the hallway, nodding to Vejiita's simpering brat as he ran by. He could already feel the inside of himself beginning to dissolve. If he had bothered to scan Trunks' mind as he passed, the boy's last thought would have struck him as funny. Ru Sa could be faulted for many things, but insensitivity to the ironic was not one of them.

He raced toward Chive's laboratory, the one that branched off from the room that held the regen tanks. He was puffing with what might have seemed lack of breath to the ignorant observer; but the truth was somewhat different. His lungs were losing their capacity to process oxygen.

Trembling with effort, he punched in the command code and entered the room.

"Chive!" he called.

"Captain," she observed, wiping her hands on some sort of disposable towel and appraising him with her usual detachment. "You have waited too long for your treatment again," she said. Ru Sa snarled.

"I know that, _kaporra_ ," he said, reverting to insults in his native language. "Now fix it!"

Chive took up a hypodermic needle and advanced toward him with slow, deliberate grace. "I sometimes wonder what would happen if you didn't make it in here on time," she said.

Lightening quick, Ru Sa lunged threateningly and grabbed her, yanking her close. She looked up at him unconcernedly.

"It might help if you snagged the arm that does not hold the hypodermic," she said calmly, and Ru Sa narrowed his eyes.

"Hurry up," he commanded roughly, shoving her away. Unperturbed, she inserted the needle into his upper left arm and waited. Although there had been nothing visibly wrong with Ru Sa - certainly nothing that would indicate imminent dissolution - he sighed as though finally relieved from great discomfort. Chive returned the empty hypodermic to the table.

"I supposed now you'll be wanting an alcohol rub," she said in the closest thing she had to humor.

His eyes closed, Ru Sa rolled his head and moaned softly, reveling in the after effects of the serum. It always made him feel slightly drunk.

"No," he said, eyes still closed. His organs seemed to be knitting themselves back together. "We can do without the alcohol part."

Chive ignored the comment and returned to whatever experiment she had been working on. "The Son boy," she said.

Ru Sa frowned. "Yes," he growled. "The fix didn't last nearly as long as it should have, and the side effects were... unpleasant. Remind me never to do that again."

"Never suck on a half-breed again," Chive said dutifully, and carefully added two drops of something blue to her project.

Ru Sa was feeling amorous; walking up behind her, he wrapped his arms around her waist. She ignored him.

"This version of the serum should help you to stay solid longer," she said, holding the beaker up to her eyes and studying it. "As long as you don't fill yourself with any more faulty nutrients, you should be all right for at least a week."

Ru Sa sighed and rested his chin on the top of Chive's head. "A week," he said bitterly. "Hoo, boy. That's wonderful. A week."

Chive sighed as well and put down her ingredients. "And what more do you want, Ru Sa?" she asked with what was almost tenderness in her voice. "That's better than any of your contemporaries are doing, and it's better than our ancestors. We simply cannot reach the level of stability we once had."

Ru Sa used his hands to pivot her toward him. "Yes, we can," he said soothingly, and nuzzled her hair.

"And I still have not mastered the reproduction of Bulma's pheromones," Chive continued as though Ru Sa were not even there. "It will be impossible to coax the required information out of him without them."

"Mm," agreed Ru Sa, twisting against her slightly as his arms slid further around.

"All the other hormonal combinations have proved highly ineffective," she continued implacably. "Her human pheromones are nearly impossible to replicate. They are bizarrely complex, even more so than our own."

"But I prefer our own," Ru Sa said decisively, and bit her on the shoulder.

Chive sighed and gave in. It seemed she would not get a lick of work done otherwise.

* * *

Meanwhile, at the same time and yet a time totally different, Dende whooped in triumph as the dragon ball's light shone off seven words somehow etched into the very center of the Canopy's glass: "... rage made whole, the bearer of life..."

"We found it!" he cried, and stepping back, tried to position Moot so that this entire Prophecy could be seen.

* * *

**Intermission 9.2: Earth and the Night Before**

_"Perception gets you killed,"_ the Voice said. _"Didn't you know that Piccolo-san?"_ The Voice was confident and sly, and Piccolo, for one, was not inclined to disagree.

He sat hovering in lotus position above his favorite waterfall, listening to the Voice in his head and of course, agreeing with everything it said. It made perfect sense; perception would kill you, and perspicuity made you dead. The more you had of one or the other, the more easily you met your doom. Why, look at Gohan, the perfect example; he had had perspicuity, and now he was dead. Of course. If only he hadn't been quite so smart, if only he'd left it all alone, why, then he might be still alive, mightn't he? And then nothing would be the same.

Piccolo moaned in his sleep and listed slightly to the left, looking a little as though he were on an invisible rotisserie. He was asleep; tomorrow was the day when they would all go in and try to take out the earth-bound comrades of those who had been Gohan's killer. So, to rest his body, Piccolo slept - but he could do nothing about his mind. To anybody who said that deep sleep was an escape from all woes, Piccolo could have said that they were fools who had never truly slept. When you were _really_ asleep, you went down deep, deep inside of yourself; and that was where the Voices were. Accusing, condoling, it didn't matter; when you were asleep you were alone with them, and they were all there was.

Resting and unrested, Piccolo slept through to the morning - and waited for revenge.

* * *

Kuririn lay asleep in the arms of his wife, his face in the nape of her neck and his hair gently stirred by her breath. They, too, were waiting for tomorrow, waiting with an undiscussed eagerness for the justice tomorrow would bring. They knew without speaking that they were going possibly to their deaths; that their loss would mean Marron would grow up alone and kinless.

They also knew there was nothing in Kaiou's heaven that could change their minds.

And as they slept, strong in the comfort of one another's love, Marron lay upstairs awake and prayed that they, unlike Son Gohan, would return to their home alive.

* * *

Tenshinhan also stayed awake, standing in the cool grass behind the Son house and contemplating the sky. How big the universe was, he thought, and how vast; and he found himself wondering as he finally fell asleep if anything that he did or planned to do would make even the tiniest of ripples across that indifferent expanse. If anything, really, even mattered.

So, each surrounded by their own night thoughts, the Z Warriors slept - and dreamed of tomorrow.

* * *

In Heaven, Kaiou-Sama was scaring his companions; he stood silent and taciturn and did not even make an attempt at humor. Bulma, too, was concerned.

"Kaiou-sama," she said respectfully, unconsciously using the same tone of voice she had used when Vejiita was in a mood like this. "Kaiou-sama, what's wrong?"

Kaiou-sama did not answer.

Bulma looked off in the same direction as he, as though hoping to see whatever it was he saw; but she lacked his foresight and his powers, and whatever it was remained hidden from her sight. Gohan, she knew, was at least safe now with Rou Kaioushin, who was attempting to heal him; just the thought of whatever had ravaged Gohan's very soul in such a way left Bulma gripped in a fear that sickened her more than any fear she had have ever had for herself.

Within the easy reach of that monster were Vejiita, Bra, and Trunks.

And so she looked out over snake way along with Kaiou-Sama, feeling his anxiety but not knowing his cause, and prayed for tomorrow.


	10. Confusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cumber begins to realize Gokou is an usual fellow; the Nameks work hard to find meaning in impossible words, but all Dende finds is certainty that there are no accidents.

_Pilaf looked around him despondently at the wreckage the monkey-brat had caused. His castle... his beautiful castle... all in ruins._

_This was the fault of that boy. The boy named Gokuu who was, at present, waking up to find himself dazed and more than a little bit wobbly - he did not know how to balance without his tail. Emperor Pilaf turned to Gokuu and opened his mouth to pronounce judgment, saying in Ru Sa's voice: "I'm going to eat you Gokuu, and your little boy, too..."_

Gokuu woke up screaming. He sat straight up in his bed, covered with sweat, panting with a physical exertion that he had not felt since his heart had nearly pooped out on him some twelve years ago. Feeling like an old, old man, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and used the sheet to wipe the sweat from his face. He checked the clock on his nightstand and was surprised to find it was morning now on Earth.

Gokuu could not put it off any longer; he had to tell Chi-Chi that their eldest son was dead.

Gokuu hid his head in his hands, and did not even know he was crying until he reached for the intercom to call Vejiita and found he could not speak.

* * *

"Good evening, Vejiita-sama," said Chive as respectfully. "You're up late."

Vejiita was in the main control room, bent pensively over the navigational star charts.

"So are you," he replied without looking up, and continued pressing buttons. They were the only two in the room. Chive smiled.

"I am always up late," she said. "It is the best time of the day to accomplish anything since no one else is usually around. My lord," she said and stepped forward curiously. "What are you doing? Is there something Cumber or I could..."

"No." Vejiita interrupted her casually, no malice in his tone. But there was a certain _wariness_ there that had not been before. _Must accelerate the use of those chemicals,_ Chive thought clinically, and mentally calculated the amount she would need to advance the adjustment of her hormonal structure.

"Is there anything else you need right now, my lord?" she asked, hesitating to walk past him to her customary captain's seat on the bridge. There seemed to be something broodingly dangerous about Vejiita tonight.

"Yes," Vejiita said, straightening slowly and rubbing his tired eyes. "I need to get an earth-frequency transmitter for Kakarotto. He needs to contact his mate."

"Of course, my lord," Chive said, and relayed the order through the wall-based intercom.

Vejiita walked past her and out, not dignifying her presence with so much as a glance. Chive caught herself admiring the smoothness of his muscles outlined under his black jumpsuit and shook herself sharply. Heh; had to be careful; these "Bulma" chemicals might start to work both ways, and _then_ where would she be?

* * *

Gokuu looked with some consternation on the multi-buttoned gadget in his hand.

"Um," he said.

"You're supposed to talk into it," Cumber hinted.

"Um," repeated Gokuu, and Cumber sighed and retrieved the communicator. He punched in a few buttons and handed it back to Gokuu.

" _Now_ try it," he said. Following Cumber's pantomimed movements, Gokuu held it up to his ear and was surprised to hear it ringing.

"This is ringing in my house?" he asked, wide-eyed, almost hoping the answer would be "no."

"Yes," said Cumber. "It's been configured to tap into your telephone line. It wasn't that difficult."

Gokuu blinked at him and swallowed hard, not sure if he wanted company when he gave his Beloved the bad news. Cumber, however, showed now sign of going away, and Gokuu didn't ask him.

He needn't have worried; no one answered his call.

* * *

While the phone rang unanswered in the Son house, Chi-Chi was in stable condition at the Saint Satan Hospital.

Yesterday afternoon, the older woman had suddenly clutched her heart, made a pained, keening sound, and sat down hard at her kitchen table. She would not answer her daughter-in-law and father's concerned questions, and no one knew what was wrong until Kuririn called.

"I've got some bad news, Videl," Kuririn said apologetically, and when Videl turned with haunted eyes, Chi-Chi collapsed. She had had a heart attack.

And in the Son house, the phone rang and rang, and no one answered.

* * *

Kakarotto was looking perplexed; of course, it was Cumber's opinion that Kakarotto always looked perplexed, but this time at least he seemed to have a good reason.

"She's not answering," Gokuu said unhappily.

"Maybe she's not in the house," Cumber replied somewhat irritatedly; he had better things to do than baby-sit Vejiita's half-witted friend.

"But this isn't market day," Gokuu protested. "It's laundry. She's never out of the house today." Cumber sighed and relented a bit; Kakarotto may be a Saiyan, but that didn't mean he was incapable of loving his mate.

"Perhaps she found something urgent elsewhere to take care of," he said more kindly. "Perhaps something to do with your granddaughter."

Gokuu shook his head, the communicator still against his ear. "Let me call Kuririn. Can you set this thing up for his number, too?"

Inwardly resigning himself to moron-duty for the rest of the day, Cumber put out his hand.

"Give me the communicator, Kakarotto," he said. "I've already worked out how to configure it to your Earthling phone systems. Just tell me the digits." Gokuu rattled them off, and Cumber began punching in codes.

"Gokuu," Gokuu said, and Cumber looked up at him, puzzled.

"What?" he said.

"Gokuu," repeated Gokuu. "My name is Gokuu. I was born Kakarotto, and Vejiita still calls me that - but my real name is Gokuu." And he smiled.

For one moment Cumber was unsure if this idiot Saiyan was being genuine or condescending, and wavered on the edge of anger. But Gokuu _was_ genuine; everything that Cumber could pick up from Gokuu's expression and unusually thick mind was as true and honest as it seemed. Cumber blinked.

"Um... Gokuu," he said.

"Yes, that's right!" said Gokuu, childishly thrilled and apparently past his emotional crisis for the time being.

In Cumber's hand the phone began to ring. "Here," he said, and thrust the thing unceremonially back at him.

"Hello?" said Gokuu automatically. His timing was perfect.

"Moshi-Moshi, Kuririn-Juuhachi house," came Marron's tiny, well-mannered voice.

"Marron!" said Gokuu, obviously surprised. "Where is your dad?"

"Otousan's in battle right now," Marron said. "And Okaachan is with him. Can I take a message, Son Gokuu?"

Gokuu was flushed; he hesitated to answer. "Um... Marron," he said carefully, all too aware of Cumber's wary eyes on him. "Just tell him I called, okay? And that... that I need to talk to Chi-Chi. I'll try later on, okay?"

He could almost see Marron nodding. "Hai, Gokuu-san. I'll tell him that. And Gokuu-san..."

"Yes, Marron?" asked Gokuu quietly, thinking painfully that when Pan reached Marron's age she would have no memory of her father at all.

"Please come home s...safe," she said, and her fear was all but tangible.

Gokuu knew.

"I will, Marron-chan," he said softly. "You're going to be all right. I promise."

The firmness with which he said this startled Cumber. It was not a simpleton's statement; it was a true hero's belief.

For one moment and for reasons he could not understand, Cumber was afraid.

"All right, Marron. Goodbye." Gokuu handed the device back to Cumber. "I need to see Vejiita. Right now," he said.

Cumber looked curiously at Gokuu, who was standing with his arms crossed and nothing even close to perplexity about him.

"Yes sir," he said, and went to the wall intercom to see if the king were in his quarters.

* * *

Vejiita was perplexed. He looked perplexed too, but if anyone had suggested to him at that moment that he resembled his "Earth-Saiyan" counterpart in any way, he probably would have popped that person in the nose.

Vejiita had been getting ready for bed when he had been struck with the odd urge to go to the bridge outside his room and look at the stars. It was a sourceless thing, spontaneous and uncharacteristic, and so for the hell of it he had gone to do it. He had been looking for only moments when he realized what was bothering him: he _knew_ these constellations.

Puzzled, he checked the computer's star charts and was somewhat disturbed to see he was right: these stars, going in this direction, could only mean they were going back toward Earth.

Vejiita was slightly confused; they shouldn't have been heading _toward_ earth; from what Ru Sa had explained of their exploratory plans, they should still be heading _away_ from it. Wondering if maybe his eyes were playing tricks on him or perhaps the day's stress had been too much, Vejiita left his quarters and went to the main bridge, hoping to check the programmed coordinates. He was not disappointed; the route was programmed into the computer, available for all to see. And yes, it DID go to that particular planet - but in a totally circuitous way. Why, for the life of him Vejiita could not figure out. He would have to think of a way to ask the noxious captain Ru Sa in the morning.

On his way out and back to bed, he passed by the regen room where Chive kept her secret labs; even he had been given warnings about barging in there - dangerous experiments, and what-not. Well, Vejiita had lived with Bulma for many years; off-limits laboratories were not a new thing to him.

Funny, though - when he passed by the room with the regen tanks - the door to which was open for some reason - there came a whiff of something strange that did not have an odor, exactly, but still struck Vejiita as familiar. For some odd reason it made him think of Bulma.

* * *

**Intermission 10.1: Prophecy**

Reep watched with something like detachment as the Nameks eagerly scoured the rest of the Canopy for more snippets of prophecy; they had already figured out that it had been scrawled, child-like, all over the place, with no visible pattern to its placement. This, of course, made putting the whole thing together very difficult, but that was not important at the moment. The Nameks had found something to do, some purpose and sign of intelligence in the midst of this meaninglessness, and they were grasping onto it with all the joyous desperation of a drowning man to a log.

Reep, with a sigh, knew better and consigned them all to failure.

Reep knew that even _if_ they managed to gather all the pieces of the puzzle - of the Great Prophecy, which even he did not understand completely - and even _if_ they managed to put it all together into one coherent thing, and _if_ the Black simply disobeyed its own nature and never came back, it didn't matter.

It meant nothing. It all meant nothing.

There was simply no one here who was pure enough - brave enough - _beautiful_ enough - to do what had to be done. In his limited mind, Reep knew that here, now, such a person did not exist.

So, he stood back, not jumping, not singing, and watched with as the Nameks put their puzzle pieces together and joyfully shouted to one another in the dead air.

It was all so very useless.

* * *

Dende was very glad he did not have hair; if he had, he surely would have been pulling it out by now. He actually caught himself wincing as a well-meaning Namek brought yet another scrap of "Prophecy," as Reep called it - with no context, no interpretation, and no beginning or end, as far as Dende could tell.

There actually wasn't that much of it yet; but Dende remembered how often Reep had sung during the time they were alone, and he feared that this "prophecy" would turn out to be much bigger than he was - much bigger than all of them, and in more ways than one. Part of the problem, of course, was that he had no idea how to order it all; he had bits and pieces, but often as not they made no sense by themselves, much less in tandem with the others.

Let's see, there was: "Pluck a-plick a-sing a song, love is grand as night is long; moon is dim and stars are bright - oh, frick a-frack a-tuck a-tight." And then there was "Pure of heart, and pure of will; making sleep and slumbers still. Slumber not, to 'venge, to die; rage is pure as love is high."

Some of them were too short to be complete "verses" in themselves: "Grand the gain and gauge the loss - emptied soul must last chance toss." Then there were some which didn't fit into the rhythmic scheme at all: "Rage rules over the night and makes day. Anger must dry, love fade away."

Dende did not know what to do with himself. He didn't even know where to begin.

Then there was the question of how these words had gotten into the Canopy to begin with. The letters were in white, flowing, as if they had been poured like diluted wax into the mold when the Canopy was being blown; they were actually _inside_ the glass.

Bulma's record made it clear that no one had been here since she had passed this way, and no one would have had the time or skill to make these words before the Black descended the final time. So then who made the words? Who knew that Dende and the Nameks were all coming here, and that the only way these somewhat absurd messages could be seen was by the light of the eighth dragon ball - which light only shone brightly enough to see when Moot alone was holding it?

There were so many questions and so few answers that Dende's head was fairly spinning with implications. The scariest thing of all to Dende was the "coincidences;" he had learned in his stint as Kami that there was no such thing. That everything, no matter how haphazard it seemed, worked into a pattern. Even the Kaious lived in fear of the Mind behind that pattern, of the deity who worked above the Kaiou's and Rou Kaioushin and Dai Kaioushin and who knew what all else.

Sometimes, when Dende thought of the Mind behind those plans, he was afraid. And now, looking at these pathetic and hastily written scraps of paper with pieces of dissected clue on them and weighing all that was in the balance if he failed...

Dende was very afraid. Very afraid indeed.


	11. Ban'yamuwoezu - There Is No Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know things are bad when ultimate gods run for the hills.
> 
> And dang, but those Saiyan boys seem to be dropping like flies...

The rain had started down on earth. Kaiou-sama watched it impassively from his home, vaguely trying to recall the last time he had felt rain on his face. He could not.

Bulma behind him seemed to be making as much noise as possible in his kitchen; her way of dealing with stress was, apparently, to build and or re-craft things until she considered them worthy. Kaiou-sama was only too happy to comply; at least when she was working in his house she was leaving his precious car alone. And Yamucha...

True, Kaiou had not foreseen that he would be having more people come to visit him than Bulma. And true, he would not have minded much, either, especially not when the company was someone he knew well and had trained; but if he had known that his former student would also turn out to be a former lover of his present guest - well, he would have found someplace else for Yamucha to be.

Yamucha sat under the large fruit tree, trying without much success to meditate as he had seen Piccolo do in the past. Later on, perhaps, he would go back to romping in juvenile fashion with Bubbles and Gregory, but at the moment, he just didn't feel like it. Yamucha had shown up unannounced at Kaiou's door early this morning; apparently Enma Daiou, recognizing him and being amused by Kaiou-sama's new spurt of hospitality, had decided to let Yamucha go along Snake Way to see the Kaiou - and had not bothered to tell said Kaiou ahead of time.

Very funny. Ha ha. So funny that Bulma had completely forgotten to laugh.

It probably would have been better if she hadn't been the one to answer the door; at least she'd have had some warning.

 _Uncomfortable_ wasn't quite the word for it; they were used to each other, should have been after so many years, but the two didn't seem to feel much like talking. Sighing - Kaiou-sama hadn't known he was signing on for therapist duty when he got into this - he made his way over to Yamucha and waited until he got the young man's attention.

"Oh, hi King Kai," said Yamucha, absently using the hated slang of the Kaiou's name. Kaiou-sama let it slide.

"Hello, Yamucha," he said. "And how are you doing?"

Yamucha shrugged. "Pretty okay, I guess. I just... I..." he paused and looked up at Kaiou-sama's expectant face, hesitated on the verge of revelation, then clammed up instead. "Want a mint?" he asked by way of conversation.

"Well... sure. I love mints," said the Kaiou, a little disturbed by this sudden change of subject but willing to go along with it. He was surprised to see Yamucha pull a small leather pouch filled with lovely, green-striped candies from his belt.

"Wherever did you get these?" asked the Kaiou, sucking contentedly on the spearmint lump. "It's wonderful!"

"From Princess Snake's," answered Yamucha, a cocky smile creeping onto his face. "She said I showed her such a good time that she had to give me a little bit of a going away present. But her magic was limited, and this was the only thing she could give me that wouldn't vanish as soon as I got here." His grin showed all his teeth.

Kaiou chuckled. "You know," he said in his I've-got-a-pun voice, "These mints remind me a little bit of Bulma. Wanna know why?"

Yamucha, elated as he was by his memories of Princess Snake, had already begun to wilt at the mere mention of Bulma's name. "No, I don't know." he said. "How?"

Kaiou beamed. "They're very pretty, they're partly green, and they bite! Bite! You get it? Spearmint? Bulma? Bite?" He guffawed resolutely, his own best critic.

Yamucha smiled weakly.

"Oh, come on now, boy," chided the Kaiou. "I know that wasn't my best, but it certainly deserved a better reception than that."

"I know, Kaiou-sama; I'm sorry," said Yamucha. "I just..." He stopped and shook his head. "Damn," he said to nobody at all. "How many years is it going to take me to get over this?"

Kaiou looked at him wisely. "Are you still enjoying your time with other women?" he asked, leaning forward keenly.

"Well... yes," admitted Yamucha, knowing just what his old teacher meant.

"Then you won't get over her yet," said the Kaiou. "Not until you've learned to leave the empty part empty." Yamucha opened his mouth, as if to protest, but at that moment Gregory came flying out of the kitchen window as though propelled from a cannon.

"AND **STAY** OUT!!" came Bulma's irate tones, and to make sure he got the point a mallet-shaped meat tenderizer came flying out after him; it knocked him squarely on the head and he sprawled in the grass.

Kaiou burst out laughing. "Ha! She tenderized him, didn't she? Bwahahahaha!" Yamucha shut his mouth, his protestations left unsaid. What the Kaiou had spoken was true. Until he stopped loving Bulma - that is, until he stopped trying to fill the hole Bulma had left - he would not heal, and that, unfair as it seemed, would have to do.

"Thanks, Kaiou-sama," Yamucha said quietly, and walked over to the despondent Gregory. "Betcha' can't catch me," he taunted, and took off.

"Why, you - " bump forgotten, Gregory launched off after him, shouting loudly about long-term Kaiou students and interloping half-wits. The Kaiou watched them go, a little lighter at heart. Now, if only Earth's problems could be worked on so easily.

A sudden buzzing sound came from his kitchen, as of electricity shooting unguarded through some dissembled appliance.

Kaiou-sama didn't really want to know. Retreating to his bedroom, he put his eye-patches on and stuffed his ears, and tried to catch some sleep. It _was_ time for his afternoon nap, after all.

* * *

**Interlude 11.2: Intrusion**

Trunks jerked alert from his sleep, awakened by a sound that he could not remember and was no longer there. Alert, he waited, listening - and it came again.

It was coming from the ship itself; some sort of electricity, maybe, shooting through the walls. Suddenly there came a second repetition, and as it sounded the lights dimmed and brightened in tandem. It was some kind of power surge.

It made quite a clatter, and curious, Trunks got out of bed to see what was the matter.

Looking for the source of the power drain and thinking the whole time that he was an absolute ass for doing this alone, Trunks slipped into the hallway, proceeding with great caution; meeting Gohan's fate could hardly be considered productive.Up ahead, sporadic, blue flashes of light outlined a thin doorway to his left, which was stuck halfway open because of the power drain. Steeling himself, Trunks turned sideways and slipped through the

* * *

Kaiou-Sama began to dream. At least, he _thought_ it was a dream.

He seemed to see Trunks - present Trunks, not Mirai - dressed in his Capsule Corporation jacket and sneaking down a somewhat darkened hallway that was flashing spasmodically as if lit with a strobe light.

Then that image faded away, and he saw what was earth - what _should_ have been earth, hovering blackened and empty in space. The stars around it were likewise dark - floating, emptied husks, devoid of light and life alike, all black except for one point of light that seemed to be situated in what would have been the Western Kingdom. If, of course, this were earth, which it couldn't be, because there was nothing there. Then this scene faded away too, and he saw instead someone coming toward him.

"Hello!" greeted Kaiou-sama effusively, somehow transported by the magic of dreams to meet his superior. "Long time, no see. I thought you were busy healing Gohan."

"I was," Rou Kaioushin answered. "And it's a good thing, too - his soul was a mess. I've never seen after-life damage done like it. Just a little bit longer and - poof. He would have been gone - his individuality, his memories - but that's not why I'm here..." and the Kaioushin was shaking.

"Rou Kaioushin," said Kaiou-sama respectfully and concernedly. "Whatever is the matter?"

Rou Kaioushin looked up at him. "I've had a visit," he said, "From Jouten." Kaiou-sama gaped at him in horror.

"From Jouten Himself?" he gasped. "And you are still alive?"

Rou Kaioushin was looking very much his age at the moment and extremely shaken.

"Yes," he said. "Jouten has come at last." Then Rou Kaioushin proceeded to tell Kaiou-sama things both absurd and comprehensive, things so impossible that Kaiou-sama knew if he awakened with this complete knowledge in his mind, it would exorcise his sanity from him as thoroughly as Babidi had been exorcised from Vejiita.

He began to scream.

* * *

Bulma jumped about a foot when she heard the Kaiou wailing; he sounded as though the End of the world had just waltzed in and bitten him. Dropping everything she was doing, she raced back to the bedroom to find him in his rocking chair, thrashing back and forth and howling up a storm; he was not, however, awake.

Bulma could not even hear her own voice over the noise he was making, and so did not try to call him. Instead, she took up Bubbles' flower arrangement from the day before and threw the contents - water, flowers, and all - directly into the Kaiou's face.

"BLACKNESS!!" Kaiou screamed and leaped out of his rocking chair so quickly that he was into Bulma and down before she had a chance to get out of the way.

"What? WHAT?" Bulma screamed back, not overly thrilled at having who knew how many pounds of Kaiou on top of her in ten times' the earth's gravity.

"What's going on?" demanded Yamucha, arriving characteristically just too late to miss the action; to his credit, he only stared for a moment before helping the trembling Kaiou to his feet. After making sure Bulma was all right, he walked the Kaiou slowly to the bed and made him lie down. Bulma noted with dim amazement that Kaiou sama's blinders had been mysteriously replaced by his dark glasses once more, although she did not recall him actually making the switch.

"Oh, oh, oh," he kept saying over and over again, and at first it seemed they were to get no more out of him for a long while.

"Aw, to hell with this," announced Bulma, and slapped him sharply across the face.

The others stared at her.

"Bulma!" hissed Yamucha. "You just slapped a god!"

"Which god just practically sat on me," Bulma hissed back. "He deserved it." Meanwhile, Kaiou-sama was coming around.

"Oh," he said one more time, then stopped when Bulma raised her hand again.

"Kaiou-sama, what happened?" asked Gregory, who had never seen his master like this before.

"I'm... I... I've had a visit," he said. "I'd hoped it was a dream, but... there's no way it can be. It's too true. Oh!" he said, wincing when Bulma glared. And then the Kaiou started to cry.

Bubbles ambled up, distressed at his master's alarm, and meekly handed Kaiou-sama the flowers he had picked that morning. That action - sweet, naive, and totally unrelated to the overdose of reality Kaiou-sama had just received - broke through his daze. Kaiou-sama finally smiled, and took the flowers from Bubbles' outstretched hand.

"Thank you Bubbles. That makes things much better," he said, not totally ingenuinely, and then looked at the others. "We have a grave problem," he said. "I'm afraid not all of Dr. Gero's mess was cleaned up when you took out his lab so many years ago."

Bulma knit her eyebrows. "What are you talking about?" she demanded.

"I'm getting ahead of myself," Kaiou-sama peremptorily explained. "And... it's strange - but it's fading. It's all fading, as though it's too much for one mind to hold. And I guess it is. Bulma, Yamucha - a time of Apocalypse has come, and I don't know if anything we can do will be in time to stop it. I just don't know." He shook his head morosely and absent-mindedly studied the flowers. A few petals fell off.

"Is it... Vejiita?" asked Bulma, afraid.

"Not exactly, although in a way he is the key," answered Kaiou-sama. "Oh dear - it's all fading so quickly. I suppose I should write it down." He proceeded to stay where he was, still staring at the flowers, his expression that of a man who had never seen colors before in his life and was sure he would never see them again.

"It's coming here," he said sadly. "It's almost here now. Bulma?" he looked at her quizzically. "I may have to bend another rule for you. Technically, I'm not supposed to interfere TOO much in the lives of you earthlings - although heaven knows I've done that enough already. Listen. If I gave you the chance, would you talk to Vejiita?"

Bulma gaped at him as though he had asked her if she were mechanically inclined. " _Would_ I?" she repeated almost furiously.

"You wouldn't be able to play," Kaiou-sama said. "It would be pure business, this talk, and I would be depending on you to deliver the message clearly and succinctly - partly because I don't want to get in trouble, partly because it's so far away that I won't be able to hold the contact long, and partly because he wouldn't believe it if it were coming from anyone else - even you, Yamucha."

"You don't have to tell _me_ that," Yamucha griped, but no one was listening to him.

"But it's worse than that, even," said Kaiou-sama. "The End is already here - and soon, it will eat this universe too. Rou Kaioushin was without hope, but I can't be. I won't be. Not yet. So Bulma - will you do it?"

Bulma sobered and swallowed, nodding her assent. "What do you want me to do?" she asked.

* * *

Vejiita did not dream often; when he did, it usually came in the form of twisted memories, nightmares replayed with startling clarity and often as not waking him in a cold sweat - and once in a while, screaming. The first time he'd done _that_ when Bulma was around, he'd nearly scared the poor woman half to death.

Now, however, he lay in his usual dreamless slumber, hands folded on his stomach and a slightly softened version of his perpetual scowl on his face.

Bulma thought that she had never seen anything so beautiful.

She wasn't actually _there,_ of course, no more than Kaiou-sama had been _there_ on Namek when the planet exploded; but the fact that physical presence was not involved in this transmission was regrettable as well as unchangeable. Bulma took a deep breath; she had something to do.

"Vejiita," she said quietly so as not to wake him. Vejiita did not immediately respond; he moaned slightly and stirred. "Vejiita, you need to listen to me very carefully. I don't have much time." Vejiita, his eyes squeezing more tightly shut, began to breathe a bit faster.

"No, don't wake up," she said soothingly, trying desperately to caress his subconsciousness into calmness and trembling as she did so. "If you do, Kaiou-sama won't be able to hold the connection and I'll lose you." Somehow, something deep in Vejiita's brain accepted this, and he calmed down. But now there were tears streaming across both temples and onto his pillow.

"There's been an awful trap set for you," Bulma said shakily, very conscious of those tears, "and you're walking right into it. These Saiyans - they're not who they're supposed to be. They're not even who you think they are. They're from some alternate timeline - not the one the other Trunks is from, although they've been there, too - and they're here because they wanted to stop something awful from happening..."

There was a sudden sense of panic, she looked away, and her contact with Vejiita momentarily slipped. He stirred.

 _Faint voice in the background... "It's here! It's in this galaxy! We're too late..."_ Bulma looked hastily back toward Vejiita.

"Vejiita, I'm out of time - listen and remember what I'm saying! There some sort of god above the Kaious, above the Kaioushins, above all of them - Jouten, or something like that. He doesn't usually get this directly involved in things, but He visited Rou Kaioushin to let us know that the end of everything is here - unless you can get Trunks - _our_ Trunks - to that alternate time-line where future Trunks came from, and where everything is already gone, like it will be here soon - and give him the eighth dragonball. I don't know what that means, but if it's... just a _moment,_ Kaiou-sama.... Oh Vejiita, just do it, it's the only hope left..." and she was fading, fading away.

"Bulma..." Vejiita began to come awake, unconsciously reaching his hands out to the empty room in attempt to catch Bulma's spirit and keep it from leaving him.

Bulma was not visible any more.

 _"Vejiita...otto...koishii..._ " And then she was gone.

_... husband...beloved..._

"Bulma!"

* * *

Chive was just leaving her lab when she heard the strange noise around the corner. It had been so long since she heard anything like it that it took her a moment to realize that it was the sound of somebody crying. Curious, she went to investigate.

Never in a million years would she have expected to find the King of the Saiya-jin leaning against the wall and sobbing.

"Bulma..." he said inconsolably, his eyes covered with his right hand.

Chive considered; he must have had a dream. An extremely vivid one from the looks of it, and he hadn't even noticed her presence yet. And was she cruel enough to take advantage of the half-awake King Vejiita in his unhappy state?

You bet your buttons.

"My lord!" Chive said, shocked as though she had just come around the corner and seen him.

"My son," he said, getting his sobs under control but not his expression. "Where is my son? I... need to see him."

"Right away, sir," said Chive, and purposely went to use the intercom on the wall directly beside his head.

"Trunks," she called into it, and waited for a reply. "He's still asleep, probably," she said calmly to him, trying and failing to catch his eyes; he was still looking at the floor. "My lord, please stand up straight. It is not respectable for you to be slumping so."

Vejiita began to laugh, a strained, slightly hi-pitched sound, and for one moment Chive wondered if he had gone mad.

"Respectable!" he snorted. "Indeed! As if something like a false kingship could even matter now!" He threw back his head and cackled.

Chive took one step away from him, self-preservational instinct taking over. Then she remembered who she was and stepped closer to him once more. Much closer.

"Here, my lord," she said, consciously making her newly formed hormonal structure bloom to its fullest. "Let me wipe away your tears." She reached out to him.

He caught her hand in an iron grip before she got the chance to touch his face. "Stay away from me," he warned. "You think I don't know you're not Bulma? That you can never be her?" He wrenched her closer so that his face was right up against hers. "She was worth ten of you, and more 'capable' than you could ever be." Roughly, he shoved her away. "Now get a hold of my son."

Chive rubbed her sore wrist, angered. _How **dare** he..._ as if some pathetic human who hadn't even lived three score of years could EVER match her in experience...

Scowling, she turned again to the intercom. "Trunks," she said again into it. And again there was no answer. She was puzzled.

"He must be away from his room," she said, and then the entire ship suddenly bucked back and forth sharply, twice. "What th..." began Chive, and then the floor bucked again, throwing both warriors off their feet. Vejiita slammed into the wall and stayed down, dazed. The lights began flickering madly.

"What is that damned fool doing?" Chive cried, and leaping up, ran down the hallway toward the door that Trunks had so innocently entered earlier that night. Vejiita was too out of it at first to follow her.

* * *

Trunks grappled madly for control of the spanner. The man he was grappling with was Ru Sa, so the mere fact that he had not been bereft of it and clubbed senseless already was a great testimony to his strength.

"You won't have it!" he cried, and went Super Saiyan.

All around them, the machinery was sparking and throwing off bits of burnt metal; it seemed whatever damage had been done was done beyond retrieval; it also seemed that the passengers of the ship were going to pay for it.

"Gimme the wrench, brat!" Ru Sa roared, not daring to let go to try to strike the prince. "You don't know what you're doing!"

The ship bucked violently once again, throwing both combatants to opposite sides of the room and yanking the tool from Trunks' grasp. Immediately Ru Sa turned to the machinery behind him and inserted the wrench-like thing into a slot; it slid in as neatly as a CD.

"No!" Trunks said, and leapt after him, but it was too late - the separation had already begun.

Lightening quick, a force field slammed down between him and Ru Sa, and then a second one between Ru Sa and itself; and in the small space between the fields...

Trunks gasped in horror as he saw the ship begin to come apart as though on a seam.

Ru Sa was not finished; wiping furiously at a trickle of blood on his chin, he kept eye contact with Trunks and input another command into the computer.

"Eject quadrant six," he said, and before Trunks could think what that meant, yet another force-field came down behind him and he watched, helpless, as the floor beneath him began to separate as well.

"Die in space, boy," Ru Sa growled, and with a mighty screech of tearing metal the ship broke neatly into three parts - one with Ru Sa and the gawking Chive in the doorway, opposite them and empty, and the last, thin arch joining Trunks, free-floating in space.

He could see but not hear Ru Sa laughing as the both halves of the ship - viewable from space because of the force-field wall - revealed small propulsion jets like landing gear along their bottoms and shot away. And Trunks was alone.

* * *

"What have you _done_?" Chive hissed at him, glancing with no concern as Trunks disappeared from view.

Ru Sa turned to her. "I had no choice. The Black has come into this universe - as we knew someday it would, but this is sooner than expected." He almost seemed chagrined. "Something accelerated it. I tried to re-charge the time machine, but it wouldn't..."

"The power surges. Of course." Chive was scowling at him, and Ru Sa for his part looked guilty.

"Idiot," she said. "You know without that layer of Junsei Aion we can't take another trip through the Black. It'll pass right through this," she said, gesturing toward the invisible force-field and looking as though she were referring to empty space.

"Then I guess you'd better get our half of the time machine working again, hadn't you?" Ru Sa rumbled warningly, and just then Vejiita arrived. He looked at the two "Saiya-jin," at the gaping hole where the wall used to be, and the piece of ripped jacket that lay on the floor by the energy-wall. It was part of a small shoulder patch and said, "Capsu". Vejiita looked up, stricken, at the other members of his crew.

They looked back at him, nonplussed.

"I'm sorry," said Ru Sa without a pause. "We were hit by a meteor and the other half of this vessel was damaged beyond repair. I was initiating emergency separation procedures and... Trunks must have loved Goten very much. Even though nothing could have been alive over there, he flew across, trying to save him. He went even though I told him not to, tried to stop him - I grabbed his jacket, but he pulled away. When the ship separated, he was sucked out into space. The vacuum was too strong. I'm sorry."

Vejiita stood where he was, nothing about his bearing indicating whether or not he had absorbed a word of Ru Sa's fabrication. "Leave me," he ordered hoarsely, and they did so all too eagerly.

_...the end of everything is here - unless you can get Trunks - our Trunks - to that alternate time-line..._

Vejiita slid slowly to his knees, almost hearing the audible sound of something deep in his soul breaking. His wife, his son.... All was gone now. There was no hope.

Vejiita no longer possessed the ability to weep.


	12. Shift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krillin and Tenshinhan are in trouble.
> 
> Bra saves her father in more ways than one.
> 
> Gokuu begins the process of redeeming a bad guy named Cumber.

Number Eighteen stood apprehensively in the shadows facing her target and her goal: the main entrance to the Asukimaiya Plastics Corporation. It looked innocent enough from the outside, but Juuhachi-gou was not to be fooled. Her husband had disappeared in there about half an hour ago, and he had yet to come back.

Piccolo-san hid just across the street from her, on the other side of the Asukimaiya building.

_... survive.... we survive..._

Piccolo said that he had been hearing _them_ in there all morning, and that was disturbing because no one could feel a thing. The temptation to go Nappa and burst in there screaming and blasting all over the place had its appeal, but Yajirobe with stricken features had advised against it. These things could change shape at will; one of their kind had taken out Gohan - _Gohan_ \- and besides, he had seen them feed. Seen what they'd done in a kind of epicurean orgy to some poor citizen of Satan City, and seen how little was left of the fellow when they were done.

No one liked the idea of ending their lives like that, and so his advice had been taken - to wait. However, nobody had come out from or gone in to that building since Yamucha's killer had gone inside, and Kuririn had begun to get nervous. He had finally suggested, to the general approval of all, that a reconnaissance mission be taken; that if Yajirobe had been able to get in there and out undetected - well, then it stood to reason that maybe they could, too. Maybe.

Tenshinhan had volunteered to go with him, and so they went. Juuhachi had had to physically restrain Chaou-zu.

Piccolo was beginning to be afraid that the little group - minus Gokuu, Vejiita, Gohan, Goten, and Trunks - might not be capable of taking these Saiyan-esque frauds out. He was also just beginning to get very worried about Kuririn and Tenshinhan when three things happened all at once.

First, there was a flare-burst of ki from inside that building - two ki signatures which Piccolo instantly recognized as Kuririn's and Tenshinhan's. Then there was a flare of something else - something _anti_ -ki; Piccolo could not think of another word for it. Whatever it was, it immediately engulfed the ki of his friends and their own power began to fade. It also began to make Piccolo feeling extremely nauseated.

Panicking - which for Piccolo merely meant action in haste - the warrior edged out from his alley-way hiding place and started to move across the street, toward the building in question; he had gotten within a twenty feet of it when the third thing happened:

The building exploded.

The heat alone was enough to knock the Namek off his feet, and his pointed ears rang from the blast; structures all around him caught on fire.

In the midst of the wreckage, above the flames and the sound of people screaming and car alarms going off in shrill repercussion, Juuhachi-gou's voice clearly stood out:

"KURIRIN!"

Both men's ki was gone.

* * *

_...survivors... we survive...._

Kuririn woke up filled with a sense of the truest form of nausea; the room was moving violently about him and it seemed his insides were determined to join it. That's when he realized that the room wasn't moving at all; _he_ was.

Kuririn was being carried face-down in the crook of somebody's arm, held at the waist like a sack of flour.

"Wha..." he managed to croak.

"He's awake," Kuririn's courier dutifully reported, and without ceasing his running motion handed Kuririn up the ranks until the runner in the lead could grasp him; he had a fleeting impression of swiftly moving Saiyan-like boots clumping along in what appeared to be - _had_ to be - a sewer.

"Ugh...?" he said weakly, unable to think straight. He felt like a baton in a relay race.

"What's... going on... Tenshinhan...?"

"He's not here, little buddy," answered the... _person_... holding him. Kuririn was struck with a momentary flare of confusion - he could not identify his captor as a male or a female. He tried to look up, blinking to see through his hair -

His _white_ hair.

"What the...." and now he was noticing his arms, so perilously weak, visibly shrunken and faded from their former glory.

As much as he was able in his condition, Kuririn began to freak out.

The warrior carrying him chuckled. "Now, now," he/she said, and shook him gently. The voice fluctuated crazily, smoothly; Kuririn felt it was the same voice that always spoke so reasonably to him in his nightmares, the one that always told with such relish just _how_ it was going to kill him. "Don't panic; at least you're alive. Much better condition than your friend back there, anyway."

Now Kuririn had fleeting, glimpsed memories of what had happened; of finding the alien's ship, nothing at all like the saucer ship that had appeared so innocuously Saiyan when it flew away with Gokuu and company. How they had found the remains of victims, sucked dry by whatever process Yajirobe had witnessed. How they had found and eavesdropped on a group of the aliens - aliens whose shapes were constantly in shift, but only just enough to make them dizzying to watch.

How he had tripped over some moron's left-over coffee mug and given them both away.

He vaguely seemed to remember trying... trying to fight them... but ki blasts didn't seem to do any good, and they were so damned _fast_... And then he remembered them getting Tenshinhan - and then getting him - and the bizarrely sordid impression of being passed around like a cigarette at a party, handed from person to person and being sucked, drained of his very essence - and hating it, and craving it, all at the same time. The violation... the sickeningly sweet violation...

Then for him, it had been over. He had passed out, and so had missed Tenshinhan's noble but inglorious end; missed how they sniffed Kuririn's clothing and detected just a bit of Saiya-jin scent on him, and so decided to spare his life; how they had all but killed Tenshinhan, but left him to die in the explosion they had rigged.

The explosion which had left their own ship in ruins.

Now, as they ran along and Kuririn's head swam with these memories, one of them was energetically arguing into his scouter.

Something about a pick-up.

* * *

Ru Sa growled into his communicator; the fools had blown up their own escape route. Of course, considering the condition of his own ship, Ru Sa wasn't doing much better...

"And don't you dare to remind me of it, baka," cursed Ru Sa. "We or the others will come by to get you. They have to get rid of Kakarotto first, and that won't be so easy."

The other party said something.

"Yes; Vejiita is as good as ours. He just doesn't know it yet. He has a real weakness for his children - fool's been on earth too long. I've left him alone right now, seething over the loss of his 'precious son.' Pah. Stupid half breed's not even worth the sex that made him."

The other party said something derogatory about Saiyan sex in general, and Ru Sa laughed.

"Yes, exactly. Vejiita's going into shock, and that's the way we want it; if he hardens the way I think he's going to, then it'll be a lot easier to take him out. And once I have Bra, everything will be as smooth as silk for getting him to cooperate. Chive still wants to try it her way, though, and I think I might let... what? Saiyan? On the little guy? Huh - well, see what you can find out. Maybe he knows about the other Trunks. Listen - I've got to go. Chive will need help on the time machine, and we still haven't raised Cumber yet on the communicator. Signing off."

Ru Sa turned off the communicator and stowed it away in his pocket. Where was Kakarotto, he wondered? The idiot was supposed to be watched by Cumber... absently, Ru Sa hoped Cumber was all right. The man had his talents; all of them did. After thousands of years of existence, if they didn't have marketable skills by now they really _would_ be pathetic.

Ru Sa stopped and stared at the door, telepathic senses flaring; his face took on a rictus of fury.

Bra was not in her room.

* * *

Bra ran lightly down the corridor, going as fast as she dared without making enough noise to get caught. Even if she had known that even her silent jog was considerably faster than a grown man could run, it wouldn't have mattered; the only that _did_ matter right now was her father.

Her father, her brave, strong father, who was at this very moment consciously trying to decide between suicide and a bizarre course of action which he called "ousatsu;" it was a word she did not recognize, but for some reason it struck her with fear. Her daddy seemed to associate it with serious bloodshed.

And if only that were his real problem...

Bra could feel something changing in her father, threatening to change; a hardness, a coldness that shut out all love, that shut _her_ out, and left him - what? Powerful, certainly, and less "weak" (at least in his own mind), but was in fact a reversion to something he'd been before. Something that, at least when he had been it, he had not felt pain.

As much.

Bra hesitated outside the door. Vejiita was still kneeling in the broken control room, as if unable to walk away from the place where he thought Trunks had breathed his last.

 _But he **hasn't!**_ she wanted to scream, but knew that would not be the way. She carefully held on to her knowledge of his subconscious as she entered the room.

"Otousan," she addressed him respectfully.

"Bra," he said with no emotion. "I told you not to leave your room." This lack of inflection somehow scared her more than anything else she had yet observed.

"He's not dead, papa," she said, and Vejiita, who was still on one knee, spun around to face her. He looked as though he had been caught and surprised in the act of being made a knight.

"What? Are you... you're connected with him?"

Bra nodded. "Yes, papa. Trunks isn't dead. But he's not there any more, so you might as well not go back to look for him."

Vejiita's face worked strangely, as though he no longer had control of the muscles there. That thing - that strange, cold, scary thing that had closed around his heart and threatened to make him hard against her - was still there, fighting for its supremacy. Bra wanted to tell him that that's what the bad guys wanted, what they were counting on, but the words wouldn't come.

"He's... not there?" stuttered Vejiita, uncomprehending.

"No, papa. And - papa..." Unable to stand quietly while bombarded with such tumult and turmoil from her father, Bra began to cry; she was only six, after all, and when one was six and words would not do, tears were the best and only recourse.

That action saved them all. The hardness slipped from his soul like cold shackles from a prisoner's wrists, and Vejiita reached forward and gathered his daughter into his arms. He was not _weeping_ exactly; but he was holding her, grasping onto her as he'd never done in her whole life, close to his body, close to his heart. And that was good enough for Bra.

"Come on, papa," she said to him gently, feeling much relieved. She pulled back and took his hand to lead him as though he were blind. "We have to go hide. They're coming for you."

"Who are, Bra?" said Vejiita gently, staring at his child as though he had never seen her before. Perhaps, in a way, he never really had.

"Them," she said. "The Old Ones."

Vejiita did not understand her terminology, but he knew whom she meant.

Following her lead, he quietly walked out of the room and turned his back on the open space where he thought he'd lost his son. The two disappeared into a service corridor just in time to miss Ru Sa, who was not very happy.

And so the chase began.

* * *

Gokuu woke up slowly, shaking his head to clear it of the pain. The ringing would not go away for a while yet, but that was all right; he didn't mind ringing.

Flexing his considerable strength, Gokuu stood and pushed off the girder which had come down from somewhere and knocked him out. He blinked; there was some serious destruction around him, and he couldn't quite figure out how it happened. He had been talking with Cumber - interesting fellow, Cumber was - and he...

Cumber! Oh, he had forgotten all about Cumber - poor guy...

Using his ki sense, Gokuu quickly located where in the wreckage Cumber was and hauled the bent and twisted metal off him. Cumber groaned. And Gokuu stared as though his eyes were about to pop out of his head.

For just one moment - for just the _briefest_ of moments - Cumber had no longer looked like a Saiyan.

Odd thing was, he didn't look like _anything_ Gokuu had ever seen before - except for once, in a dream, perhaps, after he'd had too many ju-ju berries for dinner. Cumber groaned again.

"Cumber?" asked Gokuu, kneeling carefully beside him. Following some gut instinct, he placed his hand gently on Cumber's head - if Cumber was really his name - and started just _feeling_ the downed man out.

Cumber's eyes flew open and he grasped Gokuu's wrist, pulling his hand away. He looked at Gokuu, looked at the huge scraps of ship which had come down on top of him, and looked back at Gokuu with a puzzled expression.

"You... were trying to save me?" he asked slowly.

"Well... yes. You were hurt, and..." Gokuu's voice trailed off as he read what was there in Cumber's eyes. The shock - the bitterness - the hate - the weariness, especially that, oh Kami such _weariness..._

"How old are you?" he asked out of the blue, not knowing such a question was in his head.

Cumber smiled gently, still not releasing Gokuu's wrist. "Older than you are, I think," he said quietly. "Older than... ah, never mind. I... let me sit up." With Gokuu's help, he did. Whatever bones had broken were fast on their way to knitting themselves, and Cumber would be able to function normally soon enough. Gokuu did not know that, however, and so technically Cumber would soon have him at a disadvantage. If he cared to use it.

_If._

"Are you really hurt? Can I help?" asked Gokuu genuinely. "I don't know anything about the bodies of - whatever you are, but I can still help. If you'll let me."

Cumber looked at him curiously. "So you know I'm not a Saiyan," he said calmly.

Gokuu grinned. "Yeah. Vejiita already had that figured out. But you might have broken something..."

"Do you know what I am?" asked Cumber. He felt as though he were talking to a child - but an extremely intuitive child. A gifted child. It was weird - and somehow endearing.

"Well - no," said Gokuu cautiously. "That is, I don't think I'm supposed to talk about it. But your injuries..."

"Screw my injuries," said Cumber mildly, and struggled to stand up. Gokuu reached out to help him.

"Here," he said. Cumber jerked away. Gokuu blinked.

"What's wrong?" he said.

Cumber froze, half-crouched, half-sitting, looking at Gokuu with disbelief. "You're still trying to help me?" he said. "Even though you know I lied? And I'm partially responsible for the death of your own son?"

Gokuu looked at him solemnly, a child's mind inside a man's heart. "Yes," he said. "I read you - just a little bit. _You_ didn't kill Gohan - I promise you, if you had, you wouldn't have woken up. _You_ have good in your heart as well as evil - just like Vejiita did, just like Piccolo. You're so lonely - so very lonely. And... I think you're in love. But I'm not really sure; I've never tried to read a mind like yours before."

Cumber nodded as though he had been expecting just this speech, although the truth was quite the opposite. Shock ran like cold shivers up and down his muscles.

"You would... trust me?" he asked cautiously, and Gokuu actually laughed.

"No, silly," he said. "Not trust you. But I like you, and I think maybe I can help change you." He leaned forward conspiratorially, and Cumber instinctively leaned back, frightened at the power of will he saw there. "It's never too late to change, until you're dead, and then it's _kind_ of too late, but not even then. I think." And Gokuu smiled as though quite proud of the wisdom he'd babbled.

Cumber stared at him, completely unsure of what to think. It was safe to say that in all his years of life he had never met anyone remotely like Gokuu before, and nothing in his present make-up prepared him to deal with the man. All the Saiyan's talk of goodness, of evil and change, he simply dismissed; drivel. Anyone who'd lived as long as he had knew that. But this was beside the point. The real question was, would _he_ trust _Gokuu?_

Looking back at that boy-man, who was leaning back on his haunches with his hands on his hips and looking utterly unafraid, Cumber knew something very strange.

He could trust this man Gokuu with his life.

Shaking his head sharply as if to physically dismiss any confusing thoughts concerning his foe - if that's what he could be called - Cumber slid smoothly to his feet and stood facing Gokuu.

"I need to check on the equipment," he said. "That separation - if it's what I think it was - was really rough. We shouldn't be in a condition like this, so I have to... to go and..."

Gokuu said nothing; only nodded. Cumber looked at him for a moment more, sighed, then turned his back on him and walked away. Gokuu did not follow. It had just occurred to him that Goten might be on a part of the ship that was damaged.

Turning and walking another hallway, Gokuu did not bother to marvel at what had just happened. Making friends and influencing people was a natural gift of his, and he accepted it without question; it was his responsibility, his _duty_ to help people when he could. He'd always known that, just like he'd always known how to breathe.

When he found the person who'd killed Gohan, though, now _that_ would be different matter. Hoo boy, would it ever.

Dismissing the thought for violent contemplation later, Gokuu turned down the hallway that led to Goten's room - and stopped.

In front of him was nothing. Space. The hallway was open to space, the force field at the end shimmering oh-so-beautifully in the stars' passing light. Gokuu felt real fear grip his heart.

Before he even knew what he was doing, Gokuu hurled himself back down the corridor, calling for help, calling Cumber's name.


	13. Luck and a Little Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Black arrives.
> 
> Gohan returns.
> 
> Dende begins the Trials.

Goten slept like the dead, and as a result he missed out on the rather large events that were occurring around him. Everybody had forgotten about him; everybody, that is, except for his father, and Gokuu was not on the same portion of ship as Goten was, so he didn't really count.

When Goten woke up, feeling lonely and a little bit miserable for the loss of his brother, he at first went about his business as though nothing was wrong. He stood at his small mirror and washed his face, and his mind never once referred to the dream about Trunks that he'd had.

It wouldn't have made any sense to him anyway; crazy visions of Mirai no Trunks with wrong, too-dark eyes did not infringe on Goten's reality. Right now, he only knew two things: his brother was dead, and he was really hungry.

Sighing and half-wondering when he would finally be old enough to shave - he was, after all, extremely over-developed in other areas already - Goten left his room by the door to the left of his bed and headed toward the mess hall.

If he had left by the door to the right, he would have seen that the hallway abruptly cut off into space, but he did not. That was a shame; a little bit of warning - no matter how obscure - would have gone a long way toward preparing him for what lay ahead.

* * *

Goten was feeling... good. A little too good, physically, especially considering that he was not yet even a teenager and had no productive outlet to spend himself on. Truth be told, this was not an unusual thing for him these days; but even he knew the timing of this was particularly inappropriate, and it bothered him. Why on earth he should be struck by an attack of such violent horniness just as he was passing by Chive's precious Secret Laboratories...

Wait. Her Highness's Secret Laboratories were unlocked, the open door an invitation to the world.

This was strange.

Goten could see Chive moving jerkily about inside, muttering to herself, her actions hasty and upset. Curiosity overcoming his good sense (of which Goten did not have much, and so failed to note its loss), he crept into the regen room and toward her lab.

* * *

Chive moved angrily back and forth in her lab, annoyed beyond belief at the day's events. She was mad at herself for failing in her calculations, mad for having to admit that she _could_ fail, mad at Vejiita for causing her to fail at all.

Chive was two thousand years old, and in all that time, she could count on one hand the number of men who had resisted her advances. Now, the ostentatious Prince Vejiita had the honor of joining those ranks.

It was so simple, normally; you seduce them, screw their brains out, and by the time your own chemical makeup altered theirs, they tell you anything you want to know. Chive herself got no particular pleasure out of the initial part of this; it was the heady sense of raw power that flowed through her when she knew she was in control of the situation, of the _man_ , that mattered.

That sense of power was what Vejiita had denied her today.

Chive growled in a most unfeminine manner and continued mixing potions. When Ru Sa managed to find them ( _if_ he ever did, her mind evilly slung at her), she would show that Saiyan a thing or two; oh, yes. She would have her way. And if for some reason he still tried to win, then there was always torture. If that didn't work, then there was his spindly little daughter to play with, wasn't there? And once she was done with _her,_ Vejiita would do whatever she wanted. He would sing Bluegrass if she wanted him to. Oh yes, he would.

In a way, Chive had to admit that she relished this. It was the closest thing to a challenge she'd had in a long, long time.

Chive was so busy envisioning delirious agony that she did not at first notice Goten watching her from the door.

"Ohayoo," he said cheerfully, and she jumped nearly half a foot and almost dropped her blue mixtures. It was a good thing she didn't; the raw chemicals required to make them were getting very low.

"Goten," she said, staring at him - then paused. She glanced at the vials in her hands; looked at him; at the vial again.

Goten blinked.

"Uh," he quailed. "Nice to see you," he said, somewhat unenthused. Dang if she wasn't looking at him like an entree at a buffet supper.

Picking up the gist of his thoughts, Chive inwardly grimaced; had she been that obvious? But the mixture - the new combination should work wonders with his chemistry, half-breed or no...

"Goten," she said again, a little less coldly. "Hello. Nice to see you, as well. And where have you been hiding all this time?"

Goten shrugged and leaned against the doorframe, annoyingly like his father. "Here and there," he said. "Mostly sleeping. What about you? You look pissed."

Chive resisted the urge to bear her teeth. _So **rude** ,_ she thought, but said nothing. "I haven't been having the best of days. Something of mine that was supposed to work didn't," she confided helplessly with the required batting of eyelashes, and was pleased to see his reaction.

He immediately straightened up (she did hate to see men slump), took a step closer, and offered his services. "Can I help?" he said.

Chive felt herself smiling and didn't bother to quell it. It was just too easy, sometimes.

"Well - perhaps you can, at that. Here, let me put these down," she said, and turned to the table behind her to do just that. "Lots of things have happened since last night. Have you been asleep this whole time, Goten?" she asked, aware of him moving closer.

"Well, yeah," he confessed, putting one nervous hand behind his head Gokuu-style; the appreciative look he gave as he observed her from behind, however, was anything but Gokuu-esque. "I sleep like a dead person, Okaasan tells me. So what are you doing?"

Chive turned around slowly, leaning back and placing her hands on the table and thrusting her chest out suggestively as she stretched. "Ooooh," she said. "So tired. I'm sorry, what were you saying?" Then she glanced down and relished Goten's guileless response.

The boy's eyes nearly goggled out of his head.

 _Poor child,_ she thought to herself with almost genuine pity. _He's playing way out of his league._ She remembered the clumsy way he had tried to flirt with her on the day they left earth; and with a smile, decided to see how far she could take this thing before Goten caught on that she was going to kill him.

"So... you... had a rough day, huh?" Goten said, attempting to resume communication. Chive smiled.

"You might say fate really... had its way with me today," she purred.

Chive was going for obvious.

"Well... uh, that's too bad." Goten was aware that this conversation was not going anywhere (or at least nowhere his mother would approve of), but now that he was in it, he had no idea how to get out. Goten made the sorry realization that imagined conversations, no matter how detailed, were not sufficient preparation for the real thing when it appeared.

"Um... I... need to go. Soon. Otousan..."

Goten was having trouble thinking clearly; Chive had, for reasons unknown, decided to fix his gaze intently with her own and salaciously lick her lips, as though liking the flavor she found there.

Goten momentarily forgot how to speak.

"I don't know about you," she said suggestively, "but I'm hungry. What say we go get something to eat?"

"You mean... together?" Goten asked incredulously. This was the type of thing that didn't happen in _real_ life, not until you were a more mature age - say, fourteen.

Chive smiled and pushed away from the table. "But of course together. I wouldn't invite you for breakfast and then just _leave_ you, would I?"

Goten stared, his mouth open like that of a codfish.

Chive sighed; this was no challenge at all - poor substitute for what she really craved.

"Tell you what," she said condescendingly, and for some reason Goten was reminded of his comparable youth; it was not a pleasant feeling. "Why don't we get out of here - nasty old lab, anyway - and head toward the mess hall? Think you can handle that?" And suddenly her tone was challenging, not pitying, and Goten felt his forming manliness prickled.

"Sure," he said as confidently as possible, and then lost all of that confidence when she took a possessive step toward him. He took a corresponding step back, blushing dreadfully.

 _Well, he **is** kind of cute,_ Chive thought to herself. _Maybe I'll play with him before I drain him dry; steal his innocence, or something, then -_ oh, but this was getting silly. Chive had been aboard ship too long, that was all there was to it. The important thing was testing her new formula.

Goten was a half-breed. The formula would make him drainable, or it wouldn't - and she was leaning toward the former.

"Come on," she said with a sigh, tiring of the game. She held out her hand. Goten looked at it as though it were a snake.

"I'm not going to bite you," she said gently as Goten edged toward the door. He steadfastly ignored her hand; flirting playfully was one thing, but physical contact with something as beautiful as Chive would - at least at this stage - be too much for his untried engines to handle.

"I'll... uh..."

"Meet me at the mess hall?" Chive suggested.

"Yeah! Yeah," Goten echoed himself mournfully, and following her pointed hand, headed out the door and toward the room where food was served. Chive watched him go with an interested and slightly gloating disgust. Her expression contemplative and pleased, she turned again to the table behind her and lifted up a syringe; she had filled it with the blue liquid. Bemusedly, she injected it into her upper left arm.

_Serum injected successfully; now for the field test._

Swaying slightly as the serum took effect, Chive left her laboratories with every intention of seducing and killing Gokuu's youngest son, and did not even bother to close the door.

* * *

Vejiita peeked around the corner, feeling ridiculously unsubtle and not entirely sure of the effectiveness of this technique. _Sneaking_ had never really been part of his make-up. He looked down as Bra tugged his arm for attention.

"This way, papa," she said, and slipped like an elf into the hallway.

 _Easy for you to do, brat,_ Vejiita thought out of habit. _If I were the size of an underfed Namek, I could sneak around in hallways, too._ But such griping did no good, so he shadowed into the hallway after her and obediently followed.

"It's right up ahead, papa," she whispered, and turned into Chive's now empty laboratory. Vejiita blinked.

"How did we get here?" he asked quietly.

"The other way," Bra said, and impatiently shushed him. "Hurry, someone's coming." Vejiita slid into the room after her and around the corner just as a couple of soldiers clumped by; their ship separated, their "king" gone missing, they were not even bothering to maintain their shape steadily. Their outlines wavered freakishly as they passed by the doorway, and one of them paused for just a moment to feel what he thought was a living presence inside. Vejiita tensed himself and prepared to fight.

Bra concentrated for just a moment; her eyes went blank, her pupils disappearing into dreamy blue, and the soldier shook himself and passed on. Vejiita stared in amazement.

"Bra, how did you do that?" he asked, kneeling beside her, and then grew suspicious. "Who _taught_ you to do that? That was not a skill you could have just picked up by yourself."

Bra looked up at her father and smiled, all innocence. "Son Gohan did, papa," she said. "Although I mostly figured it out on my own."

Vejiita momentarily stiffened; of course he'd _known_ that Gohan had had some sort of contact with his daughter - how else could she have been connected with him when he died? But the thought of that young man - no matter how trustworthy - going in there and visiting his daughter alone...

"Don't worry, papa," Bra said reassuringly. "He didn't do anything."

Vejiita stared at her. _She's only **six...**_ "What do you mean, didn't do anything?"

"You know," she said, and looked uncomfortable. "The bad thing. The one you didn't want Ru Sa doing to me. Although it wasn't bad when you and Okaachan did it. At least, you didn't seem to think so."

Vejiita was getting a headache; he put a hand to his forehead. "I can't believe I'm having this conversation," he muttered, and Bra had to pull on his elbow again to get his attention.

"Come on," she ordered, face scrunching into a miniature version of one of Bulma's more severe expressions. "The formula's in this way. If we get it all, then they'll melt. All of them. Ru Sa's even seen it happen, once or twice, and I think it really hurts."

Vejiita rose to his feet and once again followed his ambitious and overly gifted daughter, looking for what she wanted him to see.

There was the cabinet; he opened it.

Vejiita gaped as he beheld the contents; there were chemicals galore in here - chemicals which, Bra said, were necessary to maintain the genetic stability of their inimical hosts. Suddenly the stress of this bizarre ordeal, coupled with the fury of having his own flesh and blood attacked by these fools, crowded in on him all at once.

 _...and I think it really hurts,_ she'd said.

Vejiita smiled in a way that only Vejiita could. "Stand back, Bra," he ordered, and focusing ki around his hands, began artistically cooking everything within reach.

* * *

Goten had gone three steps from Chive's laboratory when an emotion of fear so strong it was stifling took hold of him and shook as hard as it could. Goten froze, his heart in his throat.

 _Goten, get out of there!_ came Trunks' voice from nowhere, and before Goten could think about responding, his body obeyed. He found himself hiding in a small lavatory without any clear memory of how he'd gotten there.

In the hallway, Chive moved slowly past him, the look of pleasant, vampiric conquest on her face enough to scare anybody away.

Goten watched her go, confused.

Trunks' disembodied voice did not reappear, so Goten made as if to leave the bathroom - when yet another thing happened. A door just to the left of him opened with a slight _shish_ and Bra stepped out. Vejiita followed close behind. Whispering and dodging, the two apparent fugitives made their way into Chive's lab where, after a moment (and after the two Saiyans with bizarrely blurring outlines had passed), Goten could detect the slight buzz of a tightly controlled ki. A moment later, Bra and Vejiita left - she tucked protectively under his arm and he looking very pleased with himself.

Goten waited until they were gone before he started talking.

"What the hell is going on?" he wondered aloud, disturbed, and then abruptly decided - for reasons unknown - that he was going to stay in the bathroom until he found out. At least, he wasn't going out into that main hallway again - except, perhaps, to investigate into the mystery of weird, shape-shifting Saiyans. Curiosity killed the cat, and all that.

But before he could act out his natural inquisitiveness, another voice came floating to him out of nowhere. _The floor plates,_ it said, and Goten accepted the advice without question. He knelt down and was surprised to find that right under his feet was a large conduit for something - probably a left-over from the days when actual plumbing had been used - just chancing to be wide enough for him to move through.

For the first time in his life grateful for his small stature, Goten snuggled into the space where numerous different water pipes used to be and began worming his way into the bowels of the ship.

* * *

Kaiou-sama relaxed and finally breathed again, taking great big puffs of air; he was quite exhausted from his concentration.

It didn't help that the universe around him was winking out of existence meter by meter.

"Did you get to him in time?" asked Bulma semi-casually, a clean rice bowl in her hands; she was doing dishes.

"Yes," said the Kaiou.

Bulma contemplatively dried the bowl, eyes focused on nothing. "So that's all right, then," she said quietly, and turned back into the house to finish her chore.

Kaiou-sama watched her go without comment, not bothering to tell her that Goten's first warning had come from someone other than himself; from someone that sounded amazingly like Trunks, but couldn't be - because Trunks was _alive_ and that voice had come from beyond Heaven. _Way_ beyond. Bulma was worried enough without having to learn that her son was no longer in this plane of existence.

Kaiou-sama was taking a big risk - huge - by interfering in this way, but if what he could remember from Rou Kaioushin's message was accurate, then his simple action of preserving Goten's life now might be the key that saved them all.

But would cost Goten his life later on.

Kaiou-sama sadly hunched forward, his cheerful face puckered as though he were going to cry. Gokuu would hate him for what he had done; there was no way around it.

Sometimes, the Kaiou reflected as Bubbles danced before him, life was just not fair.

* * *

Away in space, in the center of the four clusters of galaxies, the planet hung and shone a deep light. On this planet was mostly open space, rocks, a few plants; an arid and beautiful land. There was one dwelling, one structure, situated in the midst of it all - the home of the Kaioushins.

When the man woke up, he was filled with a white, dreamy, light-filled peace, and was so initially comfortable that it didn't bother him that he didn't know who he was. The back of his mind, however, was a very noisy place, and something there seemed intent on reminding him that everything was not as it should be. Not really wanting to remember whatever the problem was, he took a deep, luxurious breath, and sat up.

Opening his eyes, he found himself confronted with an airy, softly lighted room, hung with white gauzy material and large enough that he could not see the walls.

"Where am I?" he asked quietly, still filled with that overriding sense of peace. He looked down at his arms, bringing his hands in front of him and staring at them intently; it seemed for some reason to him that they shouldn't have been there. He flexed his fingers curiously.

Relaxing his arms again, he resumed looking around the room; it seemed empty except for him, furnished with him, his bed, and nothing else at all. Just sitting here, breathing the air, was good. He decided he would like to do it for a while longer.

Then to the left, a door creaked open - he could hear it, but not see it. Someone walked forward until he was in the mysterious ceiling-sourced light.

"You're finally awake!" the old man said, and the young man in the four-poster bed merely nodded, content to agree.

"And how are we feeling today, young Gohan?" asked Rou Kaioushin, and Gohan looked at him, puzzled.

"Who?" asked Gohan, and Rou Kaioushin inhaled softly.

"So I didn't get to you in time after all," he said with some trace of sadness, and the Gohan-relic smiled. He really was quite handsome when he smiled.

"I feel okay, old man," he said respectfully. "More than okay - better than I should, I think, although I don't know why. Do you mind if I ask who you are? This place - it's so beautiful."

"And so doomed," Rou Kaioushin said as if to himself. "Well, I could do this the long way and follow the rules, but we're running out of time and I don't think rules count for much anymore," the Kaioushin said, and shuffled forward to Gohan's side.

"What did you call me before?" asked Gohan pleasantly.

Rou Kaioushin did not respond; instead, he did an odd thing. He reached into his waist-pack and pulled out what looked to be Polaroid pictures. Gohan shook his head slightly; he hadn't remembered the word "Polaroid" until he saw those small plastic strips, but the weird thing was, he didn't _remember_ not remembering. It was a very disconcerting feeling.

Rou Kaioushin solemnly studied the snapshots, contemplating whatever mystery they held. A purplish light began to shimmer around them.

"Ah, my dear," he said the photos. "If anyone had any idea how many times the universe owed its salvation to your beauty, you'd be crowned an honorary Kaioushin and I'd be hung by my toes." Reminiscence past, Rou Kaioushin stored the pictures away and walked toward Gohan with out-stretched hands. Gohan, for one moment, felt afraid; he pulled away.

"Now, Gohan, don't do that," said Rou Kaioushin, worried that Gohan would try to fight him; if he did, things could get dangerous and his healing would not be complete. "This is going to hurt - I'm sorry about that - but it has to be done. I think you know you can trust me. Don't you know that, Son Gohan?"

Gohan, so child-like in his regained innocence, studied the face of Rou Kaioushin like the cover of a past beloved but forgotten book, and nodded. "I trust you," he said quietly, and Rou Kaioushin placed his hands on Gohan's head.

The young man screamed.

Ki - a reaction to the pain tearing through his soul - flared up around his body, and if Rou Kaioushin had not been a Kaioushin in the first place, he would have been burned to a crisp. As it was, he still came pretty close.

"Gohan, maintain control," he said with strained voice. "Don't go Super Saiyan; you'll destroy us both." Gohan, with renewed memory of what a Super Saiyan _was_ , did his best to obey. He still wasn't sure what he was doing here or why Rou Kaioushin was putting him through so much pain, but he was sure he would know soon enough. And he was right.

Panting and trembling slightly, Rou Kaioushin took his hands away from Gohan and moved back, feeling very old and very tired. Gohan sat on the bed, no longer the picture of innocence nor peace, his expression so filled with horror as to make null and void the serenity of his surroundings.

"How... how can..."

"Shh," Rou Kaioushin hushed. "You've got a lot to think about - there's more information than was there before. But right now, we've got to leave. The Black is here, and it's coming very quickly for you." His voice was calm, calm _ing_ \- and very sad.

Gohan sat where he was for a moment more, eyes fixed on inner atrocities best unsaid, and then nodded dumbly and moved off the somewhat charred bed. He had trouble at first; his balance seemed... off.

That was when he noticed he had a tail.

"I have a tail," he said, not even realizing that he had flung an arm around Rou Kaioushin for support.

"Yes," said the Kaioushin. "It regenerated when I healed you. Come with me now - come along. We're going to see the Northern Kaiou - your very own Kaiou-sama." With that, Rou Kaioushin closed his eyes and concentrated; he silently commanded the performance of the Kai Kai, an advanced form of teleportation, and they were gone.

The palace - for that's what it was - stood beautiful and empty, mournful for its past glory. All the Kaioushins had lived there at one time, before Buu, before tragedy struck; and now, after eons of lonely inhabitance, it was empty for the last time.

The Black arrived. No fanfare or growling clouds announced its presence; things just stopped _being_ as it passed, dark and filmy and moving like smoke under water. Within as little time as it took for Rou Kaioushin to complete Gohan's healing, the planet of the Kaioushins - and all it held - was gone.

* * *

**Intermission 13.1: The Trials Part One: Dende Goes A-Traveling**

Dende muttered and fussed at the sheets of paper for some time before he realized Reep was staring at him.

"Reep, what is it?" Dende demanded perhaps a bit more sharply than necessary.

"Doing it the wrong way," Reep said quietly, and looked at the floor.

Dende paused, sighed, leaned back from the table, and stared hopelessly at the mess. "There are too many scraps," he said disconsolately, and Reep did not seem inclined to contradict him. "I don't know how to do this," he moped, and Reep smiled.

"Mmmm," said Reep. "Knowing and doing are two things the same - just as singing and rhyming means knowing the name. Fathom is deep, and blue leads to black - soft are the lips but strong is the back."

Dende sighed. "Yeah, I think that's in here too," he said with less than marked enthusiasm. Reep looked miffed.

"Part is for you, Dende," he chided gently, still sing-songy in his tone. "Some bits do not fit the whole; taken for you, for me, and the ball."

"That wasn't one of your better ones," commented Dende, but now he felt slightly more awake. All the pieces didn't fit together? It wasn't MEANT to be one huge prophecy? Then that meant... "NOW what am I supposed to do?" Dende said, exasperated. "How do I know what fits together and what doesn't? How can I tell what it's saying to me if I don't know what it's saying at all?" He slumped forward and slammed his elbows onto the table, resting his bewildered head in his hands.

Reep looked on silently. He waited until Dende had calmed enough to listen to him again before speaking.

"Dende must pass through the Trials," he said quietly, and Dende looked up at him.

"What?" he said, eyes wide and weary.

"Trials," repeated Reep, inclining his head slightly. "You are the bearer of the eighth dragon ball; the learner of Prophecy. The Instructor who tells the One to Come of the White Dragon. You must pass your Trials - or you will never learn."

_The what? White Dragon? One to Come? What..._

Dende looked carefully at Reep, scraps of paper forgotten. His earlier thought returned to haunt him - this was big. Bigger than he was. Bigger than he'd had any idea.

He sighed very deeply, feeling far too young and not at all worthy of the tasks ahead of him.

"All right, Reep," he said softly, standing. "I'm ready."

Reep smiled, and for a moment Dende could see the frightening intelligence behind those eyes. "Then lie down," Reep ordered, and Dende, puzzled, did as he was told. Unfortunately, there really was no place to lie down in this room; Dende knew there were bedrooms back there, nestled safely in the halls of Junsei Aion, but he did not - could not - entertain the thought of creeping back into those lightless places to sleep in the beds of dead men. So he crashed out on the floor.

"Now go to sleep," said Reep - his voice, for some reason, seeming farther away now - and Dende fought a sigh of protest.

"But Reep," he said. "I'm not _that_ tired..."

... and was disturbed to find he was already asleep. But conscious - oh heavens, how could he be asleep and still conscious at the same time...

"Sleep," said Reep from so far away he could barely make out the words. "Sleep and walk well. Walk this world, Dende-sama, and be brave."

And Dende opened his eyes to find himself outside the glass Canopy.


	14. Dende, the Trials, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dende's "Trial" takes him to the last place he expected - and to the last people he thought he'd ever find alive.

**A Brief Interlude**

_Trunks came into awareness, and found that he had being._

_"Hello, Toronksu," said the Voice, and all else ceased to matter._

_"Who are you?" Trunks asked, and wondered if he were floating upside down; as light as his head was feeling this seemed entirely possible._

_"I Am," came the Voice, and Trunks asked no more. He became aware of Majesty, of beauty beyond comprehension, of a Justice and Grace and Finality that passed far beyond any meager, mortal idea Trunks had had of the same. And he wept._

_"I am ready," he said to the Voice. "Whatever you want of me, I am ready. I love you."_

_"That is what I have been waiting to hear," came the Voice, and then they began._

* * *

**Dende Gets a New Perspective**

Dende stood and gazed about him in awe; this was not at all what he'd expected to find on the other side of the Canopy. Yet, that is undoubtedly where he was.

Behind him the Canopy - somehow a much lighter color in the sunlight - rose majestically out of his sight, sparkling so brightly near the top that he could not look at its peak directly. Dende looked around him at the world, amazed that his eyes remained unhurt by the light, and wondered where he was. Somewhere, off to his left, a bird chirped. And then, when he thought there could possibly be no more shock for him to hold, more came.

"Dende!" said Bulma, and ran lightly up to him. "What are you doing out here?"

Dende fainted.

* * *

Dende woke up inside the Capsule Corporation. Not, as he had insanely hoped, his _own_ Capsule Corp., but a previous, bustling-with-life version of the one he had spent the past two days in. Before the End. Before the Black came.

Oolong was standing over him when he woke up.

"Ooh," he said. "You're in trouble now. Master Roshi - looks like he's awake."

Kamesennin Mutenroshi made his way over to the bed and stood looking over the downed Namek with cruel scrutiny, as if to ascertain his weaknesses. For reasons he himself did not understand, Dende felt a little afraid.

"Can you understand me, Namek?" asked Roshi carefully, as one would talk to a stranger.

"Well - yes," said Dende, very confused.

"What is your name, young one?" Roshi asked, and Dende blinked.

"I... I'm Dende, Master Roshi." Cripes, he should have known that, even in the "other" timeline he would have known that....

"I told you so, now back away from him," Bulma commanded gently and moved into view with a damp washcloth. "I don't know how you got here, Dende, but it's a bad time. A really bad business, altogether."

Then Bulma was gently cleaning his face and his forehead with the cooling cloth, efficiency and maternal instinct combined in seamless perfection. "Although it looks to me like you've already been through enough. How did you get so dirty, anyway?" She stepped back to admire her handiwork. "Ah," she said. "I knew there had to be green under there somewhere."

Dende tried to sit up. "Ow," he said, putting a hand to his head. Bulma stood there, long hair tied back, hands on her hips; far behind her was Trunks, leaning back against the table with one knee up and his hands resting over it. He was not looking at Dende, but was facing the wall to the right instead. His sword was strapped to his back. He looked very grim.

Oolong and Roshi were inspecting Dende closely - a scrutiny he did not appreciate - but they were _alive,_ and so was everyone else, and now Dende realized something frightening: he could feel sunlight on his face. He looked out the window.

The horizon was populated, untouched, beautiful - and there was no Canopy to be seen.

"What?" he said, staring. An air car hovered by innocently on its way to work. "Where's the Canopy?" Dende said with exasperation, and they all looked at him with puzzlement.

"Canopy?" Bulma said. "What are you talking about?"

"You know..." Dende said. "That big glass thing that was right behind me when you found me."

Bulma looked at him with extreme puzzlement on her face. "There was no big glass thing, Dende," she said softly. "Are you all right? You don't look so well..."

For a moment Dende doubted everything. He doubted the dragon ball, he doubted the Black, he doubted the dead world he had seen - especially, he doubted his sanity. Then Reep's voice seemed to speak to him from a distance - or maybe only the center of his mind - _Know this, Kami, and stay strong - Trial number one that you must face is an unwinding of realities. Stay, struggle, watch and learn, and above all, **remember....**_

Dende chuckled morosely and rubbed his head; the others stared at him, having heard nothing.

"I think I landed on my head harder than I thought," he said as casually as possible, looking at the dead men around him. For that's what they were - they just didn't know it yet.

"I'd say so," remarked Bulma, scowling out of habit as she chided him. "You fell like a dead man when I saw you. Or when you saw me. How did you get here, anyway? Has something happened on Namek?"

"I don't know," Dende answered truthfully enough. "It was all fine there last I saw it." This, too, was the truth; never mind the fact that he hadn't been there for some thirteen years. Bulma took out a cigarette and began to smoke it.

"Mother, put that out," Trunks commanded quietly from his post at the back, and looked around at Dende for the first time.

_He's Vejiita re-born,_ the Kami thought, looking back at him, _but without the sense of humor that made him bearable. Oh, this is bad; this is very bad._

Trunks rose from his semi-reclined position and began to make his way toward Dende. The others moved aside for him without so much as a word.

"What are you doing here, Dende?" he said with a slight challenge. "No space ship of any kind has entered or left this atmosphere, and no one ever learned the secret of Gokuu's teleportation. How did you even come to be here? Tell me!" And somehow he leaned forward without actually leaning forward, pressing intimidation and brute force in Dende's direction as if to scare him half to death.

_I was wrong,_ Dende thought, panicked. _He's not Vejiita; he's the Devil._

"Oh Trunks," Bulma came up, the only one in the room apparently unafraid. "Stop that. He's not our enemy." Trunks turned to look at her without smiling.

"And how can you tell who is?" he said, crossing his arms, and with a meaningful glance at Dende walked past her and out of the room.

Bulma watched him go and took a deep drag on her cigarette. Dende realized he had scuttled to the far side of the bed in an attempt to get away from the Devil-Trunks, so he un-hunched himself and moved away from the wall.

"What happened to him?" Dende wondered out loud, and when Bulma turned to answer him he realized how much older she was. Emotionally, not just physically.

Bulma took another puff.

"Long story, Dende-san," she said and shrugged dismissively. "People change; sometimes things change people. Oh, well." She shrugged once more. "Now, are you strong enough to take a bath or do I have to clean you up myself?" Bulma looked as though the idea, while not something she would look forward to, was something she certainly handle doing. If she had to.

Dende smiled.

"Iie, Bulma-san," he said, addressing her respectfully as she had addressed him. "I can bathe myself. I just need some water to drink first, if that's all right. I feel like I haven't had any in a couple of days."

"You don't look like you've slept, either, but we can take care of that," said Bulma, and turned to the wall to her left. "Input command: twenty-four ounce water jug for guest number one," she commanded the blank wall, and moments later a small robotic arm with a large bottle of water in it extended outward and toward the surprised Namek.

He drank thirstily.

A little while after that, he was ensconced in one of the upstairs bedrooms suites, complete with soap, towels, and a fresh change of clothing. He relaxed in the shower, trying to sort things out and studiously ignore the sensations and sounds of Trunks practicing powerful ki blasts just outside this part of the house. Dende allowed himself to reflect only briefly that he would not like to be on the receiving end of one of those blasts; he leaned his forehead against the cool tile and closed his eyes, yearning for the soft bed that awaited him. Exhaustion blessedly numbed his thoughts.

Twenty minutes later, he was sound asleep.

* * *

Dende awoke feeling refreshed, relaxed, and clean, and thought that these things in and of themselves were enough to prepare him to handle the rest of whatever he had to face. He made his way downstairs slowly, listening in with some amusement to the conversation going on in the breakfast room.

"I'm telling you, I'm old. For Pete's sake, I'm going to be sixty next year!"

"Bulma, you're only as old as you feel - and if you feel anywhere near as good as you look, then honey, you are _kicking_ with youth!" There was a muttered, "let's see if you feel as good as you look" followed by a sharp, quick slap, and Roshi stumbled into view.

"Ah - hi, Dende," he said, a hand up to his reddened cheek. "Maybe you can help me talk some sense into this woman over here. She thinks she's old."

"And ugly," came Bulma's disembodied voice. "Don't forget ugly."

Roshi looked back at Dende, pathetically. "See?" he said. "She won't listen to reason."

Bulma came around the corner, still wearing her apron. "I AM old, I AM ugly, and don't you try to tell me otherwise. Dende, you can tell this perverted old goat that he's just really desperate because he doesn't get out enough and that's why he still thinks I'm attractive. Go on, tell him."

Dende looked at them both and started laughing. It felt good - and more than a little strange.

"Well," he said. "I have to admit, Bulma, that from what I've seen you are an amazingly preserved woman - you still seem to possess those features which women of the human persuasion envy - but I'm afraid I can't really be the judge of whether you're attractive to the alternate sex or not."

They both blinked at him, and from behind them in the kitchen came a booming, joyfully masculine voice, full of vigor and vim.

"Indeed you can't, little Namek," he chuckled. "Now come around the corner and let me see you. I can't quite, from here."

Dende came down the steps to see who was laughing in the kitchenette, but he thought he already knew.

It was Mr. Satan.

The once proud hero was wheel-chair bound - more than that, for he could barely hold his own head up on his neck - but his expression was still powerful and jubilant, his bearing somehow still strong - in spite of what the androids had done to him. Bee sat by his side, panting and happy. Dende thought he could actually see the dog smiling.

"Dende, is it? I didn't have the pleasure of meeting you before - but Roshi and the others told me all about you. It's a pleasure, young sir, to make your acquaintance." Mr. Satan somehow bowed in honor without actually moving at all. Dende smiled.

"It's good to see - uh, meet you, Mr. Satan."

"And you knew his name how?" asked Trunks, making Dende jump. He hadn't noticed the young man leaning in the doorway. His arms crossed and his eyes keen, Trunks looked only slightly less wary than the day before. Dende somehow doubted very much that he'd be getting an apology.

"And who doesn't know Mr. Satan, Trunks?" he answered evenly, strong but not challenging. "Do you really think we Nameks have totally abandoned the events on Earth simply because we're not here anymore? You must think very little of us, Toronksu." He said, throwing Trunks' proper name in just for effect.

The young man nodded. "Yes," he said. "That's true. I was short-changing you. I apologize."

Dende blinked.

"Now, that's better," said Bulma, highly pleased, and started to say something else when an insistent beeping sound erupted from the back part of the kitchen.

"My cake!" she exclaimed and raced back there, grabbing potholders as she went; Dende thought he could detect a slight odor of burnt chocolate something. Roshi made some sort of comment to Oolong, and Oolong laughed; Mr. Satan laughed just for good company's sake, and even Trunks cracked a weary smile.

It was all so normal and well and good that Dende felt his heart was going to break into pieces and tear itself bit by bit from his throat.

"I'm going back to the lab today," Trunks said, and all laughter suddenly ceased. Roshi looked at him sternly.

"Does your mother approve of this?" he said testily, in the tones of one expecting to be obeyed.

"No," Trunks said, and looked back.

"Do I approve of what?" said Bulma, walking in and removing her potholders as she came. "What? What's going on?"

"Your fool of a son is going back to that laboratory again," said Roshi, and all but pointed an accusing finger at him. Trunks was unresponsive.

Bulma turned to him, her face weary with concern.

"Trunks - after the last fiasco? Who knows what else might be down there?"

Trunks did not move. "But that's why I have to go," he said. "And this time, if another mess like Super 13 comes after me, I'll have a recourse." He turned to Dende. "Because the Namek's coming with me."

This was met with utter silence, and no one - not even Dende - knew quite what to say. "Dende has healing powers, mother," Trunks said kindly - and perhaps condescendingly. "If he's there with me, there won't be anything I can't handle."

Dende squinted his eyes slightly and psychically perused the boy; at rest, and not powered up, his power level was somewhere in the low 40 millions.

Dende couldn't restrain a low whistle.

"What?" asked Trunks, turning those granite eyes to him, and Dende swallowed. "Your power," he said. "It's much higher than..." he'd wanted to say "The other Trunks," but that would cause so many questions and enhance so many problems he didn't even want to think about it. So instead, after a hardly noticeable pause, said, "than even your father's when he died. Uh, so I've been given to understand."

Trunks nodded, not impressed with familial comparisons to his own ability. "And Son Gokuu's and Son Gohan's, and Piccolo's, and Tenshinhan's... I know, I know. What's your point?" he said, and this time there _was_ something slightly challenging in his gaze, as if he did, after all, know how ludicrous it was that he could so overpower almost everybody with his half-bred genes, and that his secret, whatever it was, would not be breached by anyone - especially not some half-pint Namek without a spaceship.

Bulma intervened. "Dende... Trunks, are you sure this is a good idea? I just don't like it..."

Dende turned to her. "What happened? What is this Super 13 you're talking about?"

Bulma sighed, and for just the briefest of moments looked almost her age. Almost.

"I found this book..."

"You might as well show it to him, mother," Trunks said, still leaning casually against the doorframe. "If I'm going to take him with me - and I am - then he needs to know everything."

Bulma nodded, put the potholders down, and retreated momentarily from the room.

"You have no idea how important you are, Dende," said Trunks quietly, and Dende was surprised to turn and find those chiseled blue eyes on him once more. "Now if only we could convince the divine hierarchy up there to make you Kami, then everything would be all right again," he said, and although there was nothing remotely funny about this remark, Trunks threw back his head, revealing perfect teeth, and laughed and laughed and laughed. Dende stared at him, not quite aware that his mouth was open.

Trunks didn't know; he wasn't making a secret joke. Nor was he mad. There was such a wealth of deep-rooted bitterness there that something as odd as Dende (of all people) being the Kami of a dying world with no dragon balls _would_ strike him as hysterically funny. So in the freedom of embittered youth, he laughed.

Bulma came back in with a large, reddish, leather-bound book in her hands. She kept her glance on Trunks sidelong as she gave the book to Dende.

The thing was heavy; he almost dropped it.

"What is this?" Dende asked as Trunks' guffaws finally tapered. "It's... very heavy." _Bad_ is what flickered through his mind, but he couldn't reveal that he could sense that; especially after a joke like this one, Dende being Kami in the "other" world would probably make for some bad relations indeed, indeed.

"It's some sort of log book or journal kept by Dr. Gero," she said simply, and Dende dropped the thing as though it were possessed. _Stupe,_ he told himself. _The Black didn't come from this._ But there was something wrong about it just the same, and Dende found himself loathe to bend over and pick it up.

"I got it, Namek," said Trunks, and bent easily to retrieve it. Dende observed the broad musculature of his back and wondered - briefly - why it was that Trunks wasn't romantically involved with anyone.

Then he wondered how he knew that.

Trunks stood up and handed the book back to Dende, fixing him with cold, intelligent eyes that were somehow still amused - and Dende thought he knew the answer to that question. In fact, he rather suspected that there were plenty of women who would run screaming from eyes like those.

"Um... thanks," he said, and turned to Bulma for clarification.

"I found that book in, of all places, a back-lot sale," she said, taking a seat beside Mr. Satan at the table. The room was sunny, fresh-aired and clean, and at such odds with the present conversation that Dende felt unreality wash over him a second time.

"I go on scavenger hunts, of a sort," Bulma explained. "Ever since they got the barter/monetary combo system working again two years ago, it's been extremely profitable to me. I'll go and check out different leads, different areas, and if I find something I like - or more usually, something I need - then I just trade for it. You'd never believe how much money and junk I ended up with after my parents died. Anyway, I found this in a weird old sale for this guy's collection of books. There it was, just sitting there - and it was only 200 dollars. Don't flinch; you don't understand the way money is these days. 200 is nothing. You can imagine my surprise when I opened it up and discovered what it was." She shifted in her chair, putting weight on one hip and then another, until she found a more comfortable position.

"Anyway," she continued. "What we found in there was indicative of more trouble to come - more than just the androids 17 and 18, anyway. I was surprised to see stuff in there about me - and about us, you, and others, and all sorts of info you'd never believe. Do you know at one point Gero even kept a record of how many times Yamucha was unfaithful to me?" She chuckled wryly, required to make some kind of response that wasn't tears. Trunks took a step protectively toward her, his face slightly softened with concern.

And Dende forgave him for much.

"I'm all right, Trunks," she said quietly, and turned back to Dende. "Well anyway, Gero mentioned all sorts of things in this book - which he kept and wrote in merely because he liked the smell - and some of them struck me as things that ought to be checked out. For one thing, he spoke of 'the Deeper lab' - he had the word 'deeper' capitalized - as if it were a real, living thing that existed _underneath_ his present laboratory." She paused for breath, looking proud. "And so I checked it out."

"Which was very foolish of you alone," Roshi said, and at the same time Trunks spouted, "Which was very foolish of you, mother." Dende blinked.

"So you can see what _these_ bakas think of me," Bulma added, jerking her thumb in their general direction. "But I went anyway. And you'd never believe what I found." She leaned forward, her eyes bright and her face young, and Dende thought that he could guess just how attractive humans of the opposite sex would find _her._

"I found _secrets_ ," she said with a passion. "And secrets are all I did find - sources of how to make artificial sunlight - important because for a good three years we were without it after 17 blew up Mt. Fuji - secrets regarding food, regarding water, regarding the texture of the earth..." Bulma threw back her head and laughed. "Gero had managed to accumulate secrets and reasons for observations wondered about for centuries - and he'd done it in the weirdest of ways."

She leaned back, still looking cocky - but a little scared too, and Dende noticed.

"He had found a way to extract memory from dead people," she said in a low voice, and even though there was nothing sudden about what she said Dende jumped.

"From... dead people?" he said after her, somewhat disturbed.

"Dead people," Bulma repeated, and something about her grin made Dende hope that she was kidding.

She wasn't.

"She found secrets and I found trouble," Trunks interjected stoically. "I take three steps into the lab and Mr. Big, Purple, and Ugly decides to make an acquaintance."

"It was android 13," Bulma said. "He'd somehow fused himself with... I don't know, with stuff, and marched into the world with one hell of a vendetta. And Trunks took him head on."

Bulma sounded both proud and frightened of her son; and even though she loved him fiercely, Dende supposed she was. "The weird thing was, it seemed like he was ordered not to hurt me - or something. I couldn't quite understand..." and she looked to Trunks for verification.

"It didn't choose to harm her," Trunks said, his watchful eyes riveted on his mother, and there was suspicion mixed with love in there, oh yes there was, and Dende began to wonder if forgiveness could be taken back. "It was like the thing was actually programmed not to hurt her."

Bulma met his gaze, not quite defiant, but definitely weary. "It was. It was just like that. The thing just looked at me and... and moved on."

There was uncomfortable silence for a moment, and Dende cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry if there's some sort of inconvenience here..." he started with no clear idea of what he was saying to dispel that awful silence, and Mr. Satan saved his hide.

"They found other things down there," he said quietly, and the awesome authority in his voice drew all eyes to his solemn gaze. "Other things that weren't nearly so nice as Super Android 13; isn't that right, Bee?" Bee cheerfully nodded and yelped, as though in agreement, then continued panting and gazing around the room. Dende looked curiously at Bulma.

"Well, we found... come on. Let me show you what we found." She rose and led him down the hall and out the door (the sunshine was so _bright_ ) and across the lawn into her lab. She fiddled at a cabinet for one moment, then came back onto the lawn, holding something up for his inspection; it looked like ordinary glass.

"Just plain glass, ne?" Bulma said, and to demonstrate this took it in her hands and snapped the chunk in half. "Very fragile at this width, too. Trunks? Would you be so kind to demonstrate its more unusual properties?" Trunks nodded marginally, and Bulma threw one of the chunks into the air.

"Move," was all the warning Dende got, and then Trunks came _alive,_ Trunks became the warrior, he of the lightening reflexes and terrifying visage as he shot ki out of his hands in what seemed a prodigious amount, totally consuming the glass.

Dende eyed him carefully, noting how Trunks was concentrating not to increase his power but to _contain_ it... and worried, for one moment, what might happen someday should he be unable or unwilling to do that.

"The glass chunk, as you can see, is fully caught in his blast; he's using some slight telepathic abilities in the form of a net to hold it in place so it doesn't get away."

_To hold **what** in place?_ Dende had to wonder. Nothing could have survived what Trunks was putting it through, in any form. Just as abruptly as he'd started, Trunks stopped - and was standing there, arms crossed Vejiita-style, as though nothing had happened.

The piece of glass dropped to the ground unharmed.

"What?!?" exclaimed Dende, rushing over to where it had fallen.

"Go ahead; touch it, it's not even warm," said Trunks, and Dende did, and it was not.

"How... Trunks, how did you hold it in one place like that?"

"I learned the trick from Bojack's group," Trunks said, and now Dende could see that he was a little tired. The mental strain that had put on him was not good. "I don't do it as easily as Bujin and the others, but I can do it."

"We don't know what this glass is - yet - or how it works," said Bulma, "but Gero only took whatever theory he used to concoct this stuff only so far. I'm going to find out what he did and perfect it. I just have this feeling we're going to be needing it," she said as if to herself, and shook her head as though waking from a dream. "Well, come on inside," she ordered. "I'll tell you what was inside that glass, and you can tell us just what you plan to do all day."

This last part was addressed to Trunks, not Dende.

Interesting.

They all went inside and had some brunch - _sans_ the burnt birthday cake - and celebrated Roshi's birthday long and hard before going about the rest.

* * *

The Deeper - as Bulma and Trunks had begun calling it thanks to Gero's book - was much more like something out of an old black and white horror movie than Dende had expected. Under the original lab site, which Trunks had destroyed so long ago first thing upon coming back to his own timeline, was a cave. Not just a cave; it was a _cavern._

The thing stretched up and out of sight, huge beyond belief, only slightly damp and shaped in weird and fantastical ways. Dende had to admit that if it had not been quite so creepy it would have been beautiful.

"Come on," said Trunks, holding aloft the bluish lantern Bulma had given him, and made his way further into the cavern of dark blue rock. Glowing in the light of a lantern of his own, Dende followed.

Signs of a hasty retreat were everywhere; it seemed that Gero - or whomever had been using this last - had basically just tried to scoop all necessary materials into a bag and run, and be damned anything that was accidentally left behind. There was a noise and Dende jumped. He turned back to find Trunks - truly frightening in the odd light and shadow - smiling at him.

"Creepy, isn't it?" he said with amusement, and turned and began making his way further into the laboratory.

"What exactly are we looking for again?" asked Dende, wondering why he'd ever agreed to come along in the first place.

"I don't know," admitted Trunks, rummaging. "Mother will come down here soon enough though, and I promised it would be safe by the time she got here."

"Ah," said Dende, looking around. "Promised whom?"

Trunks didn't answer, and Dende did not feel the need to push.

Going over to what looked like a huge medicine cabinet complete with its own sink, Dende began rummaging around as well; might as well try to do something useful as long as he was here. He found... shards... of something strange and, picking one up, turned to ask Trunks about them.

"Trunks, what's..."

"PUT THAT DOWN!" Trunks roared, and Dende had just enough presence of mind to keep from dropping the thing on the floor. Instead, shaking, he laid it on the counter behind him. Trunks stormed over - his expression making Dende very glad that this anger was not directed at him - and swept all the shards, which looked like black, smoky glass, to the floor. A ki blast later, they were gone. Trunks looked at him with what was definite relief.

"Let me see your hands," he said, but his tone said that he expected whatever he was looking for to not be there. Dende obediently held them up. Trunks leaned forward in the strange bluish lantern light and nodded. "You're clean," he said, and went back to his rummaging.

"Let me guess," Dende said and leaned back against the now cleaned counter. "That was bits of the thing that oozed and then dried up when you killed it."

"Right-o," agreed Trunks sardonically, and Dende sighed. "So it could have sucked me dry? Just like that?"

"Just like that," Trunks agreed once more, and Dende turned to face the cabinet behind him again.

"That thing - that was behind the glass - it just drained by touch?" Trunks didn't answer, which Dende took for a yes. "There was no indication as to what it was?"

Trunks sighed and turned, still squatting. "No," he said. "No record of it; nothing. Just that quicksilver black shape, writhing and twisting like smoke with eyes behind the glass. We don't know if somebody made it, if Gero caught it, if somebody entirely unrelated caught the thing and put it down here for safekeeping. All we know is that the poor fool working with mother accidentally broke the glass and the sucker was on him - all over him, like an amoeba - before he could even get the chance to scream. When it moved off him, there was almost nothing left - he was so weak, he could barely breathe on his own. And the only reason the thing moved off him at all is because it hated light and mother ran up shouting and waving her lantern like mad and it... well, it went away. Until I came looking for it."

Here, Trunks grew meditative, but still cocky, reminding Dende of when Vejiita would proudly reiterated a kill. "I stood in the middle of the cavern and charged up, being careful not to let too much ki show - it has its own light, you know - and waited until it came to me. And then, I killed it." Trunks said this with the subdued passion of a confident lover remembering a tryst, and Dende shuddered.

"You don't have much in the way of challenge around here, do you?" he said quietly, trying to picture in his mind a fibrous, smoky thing that would break into brittle chunks of smoky glass and spray everywhere when hit.

"Not any more," said Trunks with - regret? Relief? - Dende was not sure. He didn't want to be sure.

"I'm sorry for you Trunks," Dende said, not planning to say anything but used to his mouth working on its own by now. "To have lived through so much - and gained so little."

Trunks looked up at him and for the first time his eyes were not guarded; for the first time he saw a hint of who the young man used to be. "I..." and he couldn't say anymore. Instead, he looked down and laughed ruefully. "That guy - the one the monster got - was one of mother's would-be lovers, did you know that? She's had plenty of them; men that come in, come along, wanting to be with her, to be in her - I think it was easier for them when they had a 'fatherhood for the child' angle to work on, but I never liked them. I never liked any of them. Not that it mattered..." He looked up at Dende, his eyes haunted. "Mother never wanted any of them. She never got over my father, not even when somebody - I think it was Roshi - callously pointed out to her that he probably just wanted her to make a brat like Gokuu's and not because he loved her at all."

He sighed deeply and stood. "I learned otherwise when I was there; papa is capable of love. Was capable. And I have to wonder what he ever showed mother, because she's still connected with him to this day. Once - and only once - I caught her on the anniversary of papa's death, drunk as a sailor on good saki, and she told me through her tears that no man could ever mean as much to her - even though she really, truly doubted that it was the other way around. At least," he said, looking at Dende - his face was sharp now, watchful, but Dende was entranced in the story and did not notice - "that way it wasn't a complete failure. At least, in that room - the what's-it-called room - I got to know my father a little better and to know I could trust him. Which is more than I can say for most."

Dende nodded, sighing. "Yes," he said without thinking. "The room of Spirit and Time." Trunks smiled wickedly.

"Gotcha," he said quietly, and with no more warning than that suddenly slammed into Dende and knocked him into the far wall. "Liar!" he screamed, pressing Dende into unforgiving rock, cutting off his air, making him pass out before he even had a chance to defend.

* * *

Dende woke up with the worst headache he'd ever had in his life.

"Ungh," he said, and tried to sit up. Being trussed up like a turkey made this rather difficult, so he lay still. Light from the lantern by his head played against the uneven walls.

"Trunks?" he asked weakly, figuring that the boy - correction, man - probably hadn't just left him down here to rot. At least, he should have had the decency to tell Dende what he was in hack for.

"Trunks?" he called a little louder, and was surprised when Bulma answered him.

"He's not here, Dende," she said sadly, and came into the light. "He went to fight the thing he released by bringing you down here."

Dende tried to sit up again and found that he could; he just wasn't very comfortable doing it. "What are you talking about?" he said, and Bulma sighed very deeply.

"When he slammed you into the wall over there, he... cracked something. More of this damned glass. And something got loose." She laughed shrilly, and Dende wondered for a moment if she could have come unhinged.

"I think he was keeping demons down here, that's what I think. What do you think?" she asked, and laughed brittley again.

Dende was scared now; whatever Bulma had seen, it had quite obviously scared the crap out of her, and to top it off, he was still tied - which meant that he was still held in suspicion of evils unknown.

"What did I do to get that kind of response from him?" Dende asked innocently, and she turned to him with an odd smile.

"Oh, Dende," she said sadly. "Why didn't you just tell us you were from the other timeline and be done with it? That would have been so much easier." Dende stared.

"How... how did you know?"

Bulma shrugged. "An easy test; slight difference in DNA because you're not as old as Dende should be, even though you are obviously him; therefore, the other timeline was really the only logical explanation. The only one that fit all the facts, anyway. And you'd better be glad that Trunks isn't as much of a killer as his father was, or you'd already be dead," she chided, and Dende felt inclined to disagree. It must have shown on his face, because Bulma continued.

"He _didn't_ kill you, baka; he didn't even want to fight you. He just wanted to keep me - to keep us all - safe, and here you come with lies that a two-year-old could see through and no decent explanation for your appearance. Our Dende could not have known that he and Vejiita spent a year in the room of Spirit and Time."

Dende mentally kicked himself. Ah - of course. Caught up in the real pain of Trunks' story, he had missed the obvious lead-in and walked right into the trap.

Somehow, he doubted Reep would be making songs up about this one.

"But that's not the worst," she said dimly. "I don't know what you released, but somehow when you slammed into the wall, it cracked. And another little room appeared, hidden behind the rock. And out came this." She held up her hand and showed him a large, black, oddly pointed seed.

"It grows," she said. "Oh kami, it grows. It's already almost completely overgrown Satan City, and Trunks is only barely able to keep up with it - but he is, and he's winning. Slowly. Oh, kami!" she said and buried her face in her hands, weeping unashamedly.

Dende stared at her for a while, unable to comfort her as he wished because he was still tied. "Bulma..." he said quietly.

"Hush," came a voice behind her, and Trunks walked into the light. He was begrimed from head to foot, and looked extremely weary. But as he placed a comforting hand on his mother's shoulder, the look he gave Dende was no longer at all suspicious or guarded. It was, in fact, very sorry.

"You can untie him now, mother," he said, and then moved forward to do it himself when Bulma remained unresponsive. "I'm sorry, Dende," he said. "If you'd just told us..."

"You would have had too many questions, Trunks," Dende said. "Not that I did a good job of answering any of them anyway. I still don't know how I got here." He chuckled morosely.

"It's all gone up there, mother," Trunks said. "All the vines. And now, I think I'm going to take Roshi's advice and get you out of here, and then blow this place up." Bulma looked up, horrified.

"But... no! There's so much more to discover here, so much more to find..."

"And you're going to have to figure it out on your own," Trunks said quietly, once again placing a hand on her shoulder and catching her gaze. "Whatever else is here, it's going to stay unfound."

She stared blankly at him for a minute, and then nodded curtly and turned away. Without another word, Trunks picked them both up around the waist and flew away.

Twenty minutes later he was back; he hovered in the air in the midst of the cavern, concentrating, allowing himself to do what he never did in populated areas: he charged up to his full potential of ki.

His hair gold and erect and lightening sparkling all around him, Trunks screamed and sent out an area blast equivalent in its power - though not its extent - to a nuclear bomb, and brought the cavern down around him and destroyed everything.

Bulma watched from a distance, unhappy. Previously unnoticeable frown lines traced their way from the corners of her mouth down to her chin. "Unnecessary," she muttered, watching the dust clouds rise in the wake of the destruction. "Premature."

Dende looked around at the buildings literally torn to pieces within minutes of the bizarre plant getting loose above ground, and had to disagree. "I don't know about that, Bulma. I don't know about that at all."

Something about her unwillingness to agree with him disturbed Dende, and he felt he needed to add a warning.

"Don't do anything stupid, Bulma-chan," he said, and she turned on him with the attitude and speed of an adder.

"Don't you call me that!" she shouted. "I am not a 'chan' anymore, and I haven't been for years. You will address me as 'san' and your elder or you will not address me at all!" Then she turned away.

Dende blinked. She had such anger about this - such regret. This was not good, not good at all. He could make out Trunks now, flying toward them and so covered in dust that he looked like a ghost.

"It's done, mother," Trunks said. "We're going home now." Picking them both up once more, he flew away.

From the ground, some small distance away, strange black eyes watched them; strange minds processed their thoughts and actions and deeds, and recorded all the information to take back to their leader and king: the Grand General Ru Sa.


	15. Mr. Satan To the Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Satan's lack of ki comes in handy.
> 
> Cumber tries to comfort Gokuu - who realizes he can't go home.
> 
> Bra scares the ever-loving daylights out of her father.

Mr. Satan had a head on his shoulders; most people didn't believe it, but it was there, and every once in a while he listened to it. Today would be one of those times.

After the Asukimaiya Plastics Corporation had exploded, Mr. Satan had on a hunch called his daughter; such bombastic and unexplained events usually had one or the other of the "Z-Warriors" at the heart of it, and there was rarely a better source of information than Videl. Sadly, that was the way he found out that he no longer had a son-in-law.

He was at Videl's side almost before that young woman had the chance to hang up the phone.

There, in tears (but bouncing Pan on her hip to keep the infant from joining her), Videl had recounted all she could learn from Juuhachi-gou - and then had had to go, so-sorry-otousan-but-Chi-Chi's-still-in-the-hospital, leaving Mr. Satan alone with the baby; babies were considered bad for terminal heart patients. He had looked meditatively into Pan's smiling eyes and thought that it was ironic that she, like her mother, would have to grow up without one parent. And that it was not fair.

It was not fair at all.

Growing suddenly very determined, Mr. Satan had driven to Chi Chi's residence and left the babe in the care of the Ox King. Then he had gone hunting.

He knew Satan City; knew it as only one could who had been raised in its streets, had overcome its hardships and eventually become its hero. He thought he knew just where the aliens who had hurt his daughter had gone, and as a matter of fact, thought it was a very good idea to go after them. But not alone; no. He wasn't that stupid.

So, steeling his courage, Mr. Satan had done a very brave thing: he had gone to talk to Piccolo.

The green fellow still scared the crap out of him, truthfully, but he knew from Gohan's recountings that there was not a more worthy or trustworthy warrior anywhere. Piccolo, who was at the Capsule Corporation along with Chaou-zu and Yajirobe, had offered his services at once. Juuhachi-gou was called; bereaved she may have been, but the chance to get at her husband's killers was worth putting off the traditional mourning period and showing up for a fight. Then, Mr. Satan led them all into the circuitous underground of Satan City.

In the tunnels down there - sewers for the most part, but huge enough to make one wonder what else they had originally been for - they had found what they were looking for almost immediately; apparently one of the late Z-warriors had managed to hit somebody. From that point on, it was easy. Too easy.

Following the haphazard spatterings of oddly-colored blood, the warriors had made their way further and further into the maze under Satan City, making good time and angry as hell. They would not be turned away this time.

Now, however, Mr. Satan was beginning to think that perhaps this had not been such a good idea.

They had found their goal - all five of the Saiyan (?) warriors, gathered together by one of the bigger drainage pipes, silent as death and occasionally creeping out to look towards the sky as though expecting God Himself to come for them.

Only they didn't look like Saiyans anymore; they still had wild, spiky hair, but that was where the resemblance ended. In fact, although it was hard to see in this half-light, it almost appeared that their skin had no color in it at all...

Kuririn had been spotted almost immediately, and chaos had summarily erupted.

"Kuririn!" shouted Juuhachi, and then ki shots were everywhere and no one was moving slowly enough for Mr. Satan to see them. Taking his cue, he moved silently into a darkened corner and waited it out.

He was horrified to see the enemy winning.

"Bean! Ki-capture!" ordered the alien apparently in charge, and without waiting for further instruction the soldier under command whipped out a strange staple-gun looking thing and started firing it at them. The result was horrific.

A small, bent, energy band came out - indeed looking very much like a staple - and expanded instantly to wrap itself around the middle of the good guy in question. Without fail it hit them, froze them, and slammed them into the wall, where they stayed.

It took only moments for the three remaining warriors to be captured.

Piccolo howled.

"No!" he cried, and raising his hands at the elbows tried to fire a ki blast at somebody; but as he did, white tentacles of power - emanating from the band pinning his arms to his waist - shot through his entire body, making him scream and writhe until he fell unconscious.

"Ha!" said the soldier who had shot the things. "That's got you."

"You... won't..." but whatever Juuhachi had been going to say was cut off as the same thing happened to her; her agony, however, ended sooner. As soon as she stopped trying to power up, _it_ stopped.

"Ha!" said the soldier again; apparently his vocabulary was somewhat limited. "Don't use your ki, baka; powering up is what activates the band."

Chaou-zu, wide-eyed, did nothing - and nothing happened to him.

"That's a good little... boy," said the non-Saiyan, glaring curiously at him with solid black eyes. "You know, it's funny - with that white skin, you almost look like... what do you think, Artichoke? Could he be related?"

Artichoke the commander scrutinized Chaou-zu carefully. "Nope," he said. "Too puny. Heh." The five whatever-they-were gloated hungrily over their captives, and not one of them seemed to notice that Mr. Satan was not among them. Creeping on silent feet (he was almost as good at sneaking as Yajirobe), he sidled behind them and into the further corridor, where Juuhachi had spotted Kuririn.

Or what was left of him.

"What happened to you?" he asked, leaning down concernedly beside Kuririn's limp body; the little man barely had the energy to breathe.

"Eh, the usual," Kuririn answered as off-handedly as possible. "They just got a little hungry, is all."

"Don't talk any more," Mr. Satan said. "I'm getting you out of here."

"Well, well - looks like one got away," someone said from behind him, and Mr. Satan froze.

"Shoot him," came the order, and Mr. Satan dodged to the side faster than he'd ever dodged before. The ki-constraint missed him and fizzed harmlessly into the wall. Standing and turning regally to face them, Mr. Satan scowled. He was beginning to get very ticked off.

"How... how dare you!" he said, Gohan's smiling face and Videl's crying one floating before his eyes. "You have no right!"

The alien facing him snorted dismissively and shot again; this time, his aim was dead on. The beam hit him full in the chest...

...and fizzled out the moment it touched him.

Mr. Satan looked down at his unhampered chest curiously; the criminal looked with him. Mr. Satan looked up; the bad guy met his eyes. Mr. Satan smiled.

From the other corridor, the only warning the remaining four aliens had that all was not going their way was the quick, sharp sounds of hand-to-hand fighting; it ended in a gurgled cry. Artichoke looked up curiously.

"What was that?" he asked, moving away from 18. "Is something wrong with Shitake's ki-wrap?"

His answer hit him in the face.

Shitake, neck broken but still alive, came flying from the other room and landed on him.

"Blast him!" Artichoke shouted from under Shitake's weight, and the three standing warriors turned to do what they were told. Mr. Satan, however, had anticipated this, and stood in the darkened doorway with the ki-capture gun in his hand.

"Oh, no you don't," he said, and shot them all - one, two, three - before they even got a chance to move. They screamed briefly and then were silent, pinned to the wall and glaring. Artichoke stood up.

"You have practically no ki," Artichoke said, looking warily at Mr. Satan.

"Parlor tricks," said Mr. Satan out of habit, and watched Artichoke carefully. He didn't know how many shots this thing had left, and he had seen (almost) how fast this alien could be.

Artichoke smiled.

"Indeed," he said, and with no further warning launched himself in Mr. Satan's direction. Mr. Satan fired - and Artichoke batted the beam away.

"I know how to re-angle my ki, baka," he said menacingly, and then was on top of him; apparently, able to re-angle ki or not, Artichoke didn't want to risk being shot at again.

There was a brief struggle; Juuhachi and Chaou-zu watched, unable to help, trying to figure out what was meant by "re-angling ki" so they could get loose. Piccolo still hung like a bug on a card, unconscious.

"Haha!" laughed Mr. Satan victoriously, and got in one lucky punch - lucky because Artichoke was as fully capable a fighter as a middle-class Saiyan and there was no way that Mr. Satan should have been able to hit him. His fist connected squarely with Artichoke's impossibly angular jaw and just about broke his face.

Not one to walk away from an advantage, Mr. Satan waded in after the slightly dazed Artichoke and promptly beat the crap out of him.

Enemies subdued, he then walked up to Juuhachi-gou and Chaou-zu ran his hands through the ki-staples holding them against the wall; the energy bands fizzed and immediately disappeared.

"Catch him," he said then, referring to Piccolo, and freed the limp Namek as well. Juuhachi dutifully caught him. Mr. Satan nodded. "Now grab your husband and let's get out of here."

"But what about them?" Chaou-zu started, pointing at the bad guys.

"Do you really think we'd even be able to hold something like them captive?" he added quietly, and Juuhachi nodded once in understanding.

"You're right," she said, handing the unconscious Piccolo to him. "I have one more thing to do." And before Mr. Satan got the chance to stop her, 18 raced over to the wall and beheaded the remaining aliens - one, two, three. She simply fried Artichoke until there was nothing but ashes left.

"Now, for my husband," she said coolly, and disappeared into the far hallway to get him.

Mr. Satan stared. He gulped once. "Glad she's on my side," he muttered, hoisting Piccolo's bulk onto his shoulder.

They were long gone by the time Ru Sa's rescue pod arrived.

* * *

All of the good feelings Cumber had had toward Gokuu were rapidly diminishing as the younger man panicked.

"But... but..." He was dancing from foot to foot now.

 _For heaven's sake..._ "Gokuu, he's fine. I'm sure of it." _Well, no I'm not really, but there's no need to tell you_ that _, now is there?_

"But... but... I CAN'T SENSE HIS KI!!!"

"His ki? Is that all?" Cumber sighed and place both hands - surprisingly strong hands - on Gokuu's shoulders to stop his frantic dancing. "Look," he intoned. "This is Junsei Aion - nearly the whole ship is plated in Junsei Aion. Both parts. You can't sense ki through Junsei Aion, do you understand me? You couldn't even sense us coming at all to earth, remember? You picked us up on the satellite and that was it?" Gokuu stopped panicking.

"You're right," he said, his voice dropped a few intervals from freaked-mode. "I couldn't sense you. So... Goten's probably all right? But what if Gohan... what if..."

"Listen Gokuu," said Cumber, and then was unable to believe what came out of his own mouth. "Gohan wouldn't have died if he hadn't been snooping. All right? I know that for a fact. No, I won't tell you who did it," he sighed; if anyone ever found out he'd even _had_ this conversation, he'd be in for it. "The likelihood of that happening to Goten is zero to none. At least, from the same source."

Gokuu considered this; he studied Cumber's kind but wary eyes, and he calmed down.

"Okay," he said quietly. "But if there's a problem of any kind..."

"Then it won't be your fault," said Cumber evenly. _Or mine,_ he told himself, but for some reason he didn't believe it. "Just calm down, Gokuu, you can't do anything to help him now."

Gokuu took a deep sigh and considered his options. "Maybe I should go home," he said suddenly, not knowing quite what prompted him to do so.

"Ah - that's a nice idea, Gokuu, but you can't really..." Cumber looked closely at him. "Damn, you mean it, don't you? How do you plan to do it?"

Gokuu looked up. "Like this," he said, and pressed two fingers to his forehead. "I'm going now," he said, "but I'll be back. I promise..." and then he paused. "No - I can't go," he said. "Because I can't sense your ki, I wouldn't be able to come back." Now he looked truly distressed.

"Gokuu," said Cumber with a consolation he didn't really feel. "It'll be all right."

"You promise?" asked Gokuu, looking up at him with hurt, child-like eyes, and Cumber could not bring himself to lie to him. He just didn't answer at all.

Gokuu looked back, meeting Cumber's gaze. His own made the change from child to adult, and Cumber blinked. "I understand," said Gokuu quietly, and without another word turned away and went to see if the exercise room were still intact. For Gokuu, working out his problems meant a literal working out - in the physical sense, of course. Cumber watched him go, nonplussed.

"What a man," he said to himself when Gokuu had turned the corner. "What kind of a man is that?" he asked as a follow up, and then had to wonder: "What are we doing to him?"

Shaking his head slightly, Cumber turned the other way and walked toward the central control room, in which was located the strongest communicator on the ship. He didn't want to miss the expected call from Ru Sa.

* * *

**Interlude 15.1: Vejiita - First Conflict**

Vejiita blinked his eyes and gaped stupidly at the transformation his "room" had undergone. Since the ship's separation, it had become not the auxiliary bridge but the main one, and all the lights were on and the consoles up and running. He froze.

"Come on, papa," insisted Bra, pulling him into the room.

"But... Bra... there's probably someone here..."

"Not yet there isn't, and they're not coming here for a while yet. They're too busy looking for you."

"And I'd have to be crazy to come back here," Vejiita muttered to himself and followed his daughter's insistent tugging.

"Besides," she continued. "You're still stronger than they are - at least, your ki power is, and they all know that. It's just their powers you have to watch out for."

"Powers?"

Bra was leading him toward the navigational console now, and Vejiita noted that their course was set for earth - no attempt at deception now, just straight to earth.

"What?" he wondered, and considered screwing with the program; but no, who knew _where_ they'd end up then, and he still had Bra to take care of.

Then he wondered why he hadn't thought of the solution before.

"Bra," he said. "Are you still connected with any of these people?"

"Sure," she answered offhandedly, but her little mien was troubled.

Vejiita started to ask her what was wrong, but pushed the question aside; they did not have time for such things. "Do you remember if any of them knew anything about escape pods? This is such a well laid-out saucer ship; I'm hesitant to believe that they have no pods."

"Yeah," Bra answered, and was about to say something else when her father abruptly grabbed her up and raced like the devil to the back room. Just in the nick of time; that slight tug he'd felt in his ki was one of the pseudo-Saiyans. In fact, it was Chive.

She looked awful. She looked rather as though someone had gone the full ten rounds with her and then torn her clothing just for good measure. Grumbling, she made her way to the control console and started pressing buttons.

Tip-toeing very quietly - flying would use too much ki and cause his detection - Vejiita made his way up to her from behind and prepared to break her neck. Chive paused. She sighed a deep, way-weary sigh.

"If you're going to kill me, Vejiita, you could at least make it quick. I, your _humble subject_ ," she said with heavy sarcasm, "would be eternally grateful."

Bra came out from Vejiita's room, blithely disobeying her father's orders.

"Chive," she said concernedly. "Why did Ru Sa hurt you?" Chive turned around and Vejiita confirmed that she was, indeed, very hurt - although less so than he'd initially thought.

"The Captain," she said bemusedly, "didn't approve of the way I handled Kakarotto's youngest son. He thought, in fact, that I contributed heavily to that young man's disappearance. So, he 'dealt' with me. Heh." Chive put her hands on her hips and looked smug. But Vejiita was a connoisseur of people - beaten and otherwise - and he knew defeat and resignation when he saw it. It made him sick to his stomach. This was humiliation. This was disgusting - 

Something of this may have shown in his look, because Chive suddenly went on the offensive.

"And you have a problem with this?" she asked him shrilly. "You? Of all people, YOU? The grand general of Saiyan commanders? The living embodiment of 'warrior supreme?' Ha!" She glared at him. "You pathetic man, trying to live up to standards of a people that no longer exists, reaping the benefits of the planets you destroyed - and you DARE to pass judgment on me? HA!"

Vejiita actually took a step back from this tirade; she was yelling things at him that he had thought, perhaps, in his darker moments, that he had wrestled with when sleeping and dealing with guilt that could never surface in his mind when he was awake...

He bumped into his daughter and stopped. He looked up at Chive.

"You are Sheinri-Tsu," he said quietly, and looked at her in soft but wary wonder.

Chive stopped her forward movement - he just realized at this point that she had been walking toward him - and changed tactics completely. Instead of attacking, she put her face in her hands and started to weep.

Vejiita blinked; this kind of change in emotions was one thing he had been used to on earth - he had been married to Bulma, after all - but for reasons he did not understand, Chive's tears were pulling on his heart. Without knowing what he was doing, he took a step toward her.

"Chive..." he said gently. Bra leaped forward and grabbed his arm.

"No, papa!" she shrilled. "It's a trick! She's... doing something to you! She's ... doing..." and suddenly she swayed on her feet and fell down. Vejiita caught her. He looked back at Chive to see that woman's face - already much healed from what it was - pulled back in a horrifying grimace, teeth bared and eyes blazing. Her intense gaze was locked onto Bra.

Chive was doing this.

Chive was doing something to his daughter.

Growling deeply in his throat, Vejiita lashed out at her and slammed Chive backwards; the woman - suddenly with nary a sign of a bruise on her face at this point - hit the far wall and slid behind the console. Vejiita flew after her.

When he had her up by the throat he spared a glance back to Bra - the girl was still on the ground, out.

"Let GO of her!" he roared at Chive, pressing harder. Chive looked at him and parted her lips gently.

 _...kiss me..._ seemed to come to his mind out of nowhere, and Vejiita came very close to doing just that. Then he blinked, shook himself, and concentrated on his unconscious daughter's body flung on the floor like a rag doll.

"Bitch," he hissed at Chive, and began to lay into her with a will.

Apparently deciding her present tactics were not working, Chive fought back in weird and wonderful ways. Suddenly, her neck - which had been firmly in Vejiita's grasp not a moment before - changed substance, _absorbed_ Vejiita's hand into it, then resolidified; his left arm was effectively trapped.

"What..." he started, but then Chive was laying into _him_ , and he had the briefest of moments to wonder that he had ever felt badly that Ru Sa had beaten her up; and then he was on the floor, on his back, knocked dizzy by the pure force of her blows. Chive was on top of him.

"And here we are, my Prince," she said caustically, now pinning his arms above his head and leaning over him. "We would have ended up here sooner - and more pleasantly for you - if you'd just listened to me. I am not Sheinri-Tsu, baka," and she spit in his face. "I am Kyuujinshu, old beyond your belief and more powerful than your puny mind can ever comprehend. And you are mine, and you will give yourself to me, or I will kill your puny daughter." She gloated and grinned, wiggling on his torso until she felt she had a position of total supremacy; her legs clamped so tightly around his middle that he could barely breathe.

 _Bra..._ thought Vejiita, and he tried to push Chive away - but whatever his daughter had said about his ki being stronger, she'd neglected to mention that in brute strength, Chive overpowered him.

Vejiita had never felt so humiliated in his life.

"You think Ru Sa would like this idea?" he spat at her, and tried to pull his arms away from hers. It was like being in an iron clamp; he could not move.

"Baka," she said again. "He would not care what I did with you, as long as I let him drink from you afterwards. You're very important, you know; you pure-blooded Saiya-jin are hard to come by these days." She leaned even closer, her breath tickling his nose. "And you, being pure-bred on top of that - genetically superior as one of the royal blood, descended from the original Super Saiyan - why, I do believe you are very valuable indeed. Oh yes, you are. Now," she said, sitting up again. "What will it be? Your pride? Or your daughter?"

Vejiita blinked. Wondered, for one moment, if it were worth the sacrifice...

Then he seemed to hear a voice that he had not heard in so long that it almost - _almost_ \- took him a moment to recognize it.

 _Baka,_ his father said. _They're going to kill her anyway._

Of course. That made his choice clear.

Vejiita took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "You... you're right," he said to Chive, trying to instantaneously master the meditation techniques that Piccolo had attempted to teach him so many years before; he had to control his thoughts now, above all else. "I... my daughter... please..."

Chive looked into him, as well as she could, and she saw nothing that would indicate his imminent betrayal - only defeat, anger, hatred, all those things which were supposed to be there. Slowly, experimentally, she released her legs' hold on his middle, and was gratified to see he didn't fight. She leaned down and kissed him.

He kissed her back, cursing the fact that his arms were still pinned, hoping Bra wasn't seeing any of this, and praying that Bulma, wherever she was, would forgive him. And then he swung his leg up as fast and as hard as he could and clopped Chive on the back of the head.

She pulled back from this, screeching - and Vejiita's arms were free.

"FINAL FLASH!" he cried, and hit the awful woman right in the chest. She went flying back from him, not looking so well, no, not looking so well at all, and slammed into the wall, disappearing again behind the console.

Vejiita was smarter this time; he didn't risk touching her. He walked around to the other side of the console and gloated at her as she lay there panting, her breath whistling badly in and out through tortured, exposed lungs.

In front of his eyes she was healing. Well, he wasn't about to let her do _that._

"Say goodbye, Chive," Vejiita, said and aimed his hands at her. "Big Bang Attack!"

Then maybe it was something in the way she smiled, or maybe just some innate sense for danger that Vejiita possessed, but whatever it was, he knew he must _move_... and move quickly. Unsure what he was even dodging, he leaped to the side - and his explosive attack came flying right back at him.

The woman had somehow channeled the blast through herself and toward him again. Its bare edge caught him in the right side, damaging his arm and spinning him in the air to hit the floor very hard. Suddenly she was standing over him, baring her teeth in a ferocious grimace, and she wasn't looking all that Saiyan right now, oh no; in fact, she wasn't looking like any humanoid creature Vejiita had seen before. One other thing he knew:

She did not look like a Tsufuru.

"You bastard," she said. "Fool of a Saiyan. You can't... AAAAH!!!" and suddenly she grabbed both sides of her head and screamed. The sound... the penetrating, soul-piercing _sound_ seemed to burn into his very skin. Unable to take the pain of it at this proximity, Vejiita scuttled away from her on his back, sliding along with his feet and clamping his left hand over his ear - his right hand wasn't working too well at the moment. That's when he caught sight of Bra.

The little girl was standing, apparently recovered from whatever Chive had done to her, and was grimacing as well, a look of concentration aging her face. Her hair was blown back from her by the force of the panicked ki exploding all around Chive - and Bra stood still against it.

"No," she said quietly, her voice somehow heard above the ruckus. "You're mine." Suddenly Chive stopped screaming, looked shocked, and plopped backwards right onto the floor. There she sat, docile as a stuffed animal, and expressionless as the dead.

"Papaaaaa..." and Bra started to cry.

Vejiita crawled over to her and held his daughter, securing her in the crook of his one good arm and trembling with a fear he did not want her to see. For he knew what he had just witnessed...

Bra had taken her soul.

Vejiita held his child and panted, letting her weep against him, not sure if it were a good thing or a bad thing and truthfully not caring either way. It was some time before they had the presence of mind to rise and go their way; Vejiita was now more determined than ever to find the port where the space pods were kept. No matter what else happened, he had to get her out of here.

They slipped from the auxiliary control room and down the hallway; and behind them, unseen and for the most part unfelt, Chive sat behind the console and thought no more.


	16. Goten's Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doing the right thing has a price.

Goten crawled out of the maintenance shaft and looked around to see where he was. It hadn't taken him long, really, to get here - but now that he _was_ here, he was not at all sure what to do. So far, neither of the guiding voices which had led him down here in the first place had returned.

He stared at his surroundings with some confusion. There were space pods of every size and shape around him, as if everybody on board had to have at least one escape available to them at all times. He had to wonder why they would bother; there were enough pods here to launch an army. A moment's inspection, however, revealed that not all the pods were in working order; haphazard piles of machine parts lay scattered all over the room, and in the dim stars' light the place seemed misshapen and filled with shadows. It was, in a word, creepy.

Was Goten going to stay there a moment longer? Damn straight he was not. Spotting a door on the other side of the room, Goten began lightly trotting across the littered floor, trying not to trip or get snagged by anything. Then with no warning, the door slid open.

Goten had just enough time to hide behind a small space pod before whoever it was switched on the lights and came into the room.

Whoever it was turned out to be Ru Sa.

Apparently unaware of Goten's presence, the captain stormed over to one of the larger vessels and began getting it ready for takeoff, pulling a tool of some kind from his belt and fiddling with the hull. He was cursing fluidly under his breath as he did so.

And here apparently came the source of his vexation; walking with something less than her usual confidence, Chive came cautiously into the room after him. The minute she was visible, Ru Sa stopped working and glared at her.

"LEFT THE DAMNED DOOR OPEN!!" he suddenly roared, and Goten jumped about a foot. "What kind of an ASS are you?!?"

Chive cringed slightly. "I didn't know..."

"Oh, you knew," Ru Sa, growled, and took a step closer. "You knew, bitch, and you cost us a good year's travel by doing this. A WHOLE FUCKING YEAR!" Ru Sa threw his metal spanner to the floor, bending it against the Junsei Aion by the force of his throw. Goten gulped and hunched down further. Somehow, he thought it would be a very bad thing to be discovered just now.

"Goten," growled Ru Sa, and Goten stiffened and stifled a gasp - but the captain was not looking at him. "Where is he, Chive? Answer me that, and I may not kill you."

Chive attempted to look callused; if her hands hadn't been shaking so much, she might have pulled it off.

"I wouldn't know, _captain,_ " she spit the word out, crossing her arms defiantly. "Nice of you to assume that every time some guy goes missing it's my fault." Ru Sa rolled his eyes dramatically and started walking toward her.

"Well, if _somebody's_ more banal appetites were more under control, then I wouldn't _have_ to assume that all the time, now would I?"

Chive opened her mouth to protest, and Ru Sa was suddenly right in front of her. She uttered a short, high cry through tightly closed lips and fell back.

That was when Goten realized that they had not been speaking Basic or Japanese all this time.

 _...what?_ He wondered to himself, but the answer was not forthcoming. He didn't even know how he knew they weren't speaking his language - not to mention how he was understanding what they were saying. He wondered, briefly, if those past voices of warning had anything to do with it.

Ru Sa had grabbed Chive's wrist to keep her from escaping him. She leaned back, away from him, wide-eyed terror beginning to mix with the fury on her perfect face. It really didn't look like it belonged there.

"I... I..."

"Oh, come now, Chive-chan," Ru Sa rumbled more pleasantly, but Goten saw the way Chive flinched in response and knew this tone was more dangerous than his first. "You don't think I'd be jealous - do you?"

Chive looked up at him, shaking her head frantically. Ru Sa pulled her closer and growled.

"Because of you," he said, and yanked her right up to his face. "Because of _you_ , we have to take advantage of those damned Nameks we had stored for later and go all the way back to that dead world. Do you understand me, Chive-chan? _Do_ you? I hope so, because I grow tired of repeating myself. Now, for the last time - _what_ did you _do_ with _Goten?_ "

Any indication of rebellion was gone from Chive's expression now; tears were streaming down her cheeks, and for some strange reason Goten began to think that she was not crying for fear _of_ Ru Sa. She was crying because she had not _pleased_ him.

He began to feel true disgust.

"I... I lost him," she admitted, hanging her head and not bothering to check if Ru Sa were affected by her tears. He wasn't. "I thought I could... I developed a new formula - a variation on the old, and it might have made integration possible... even with his genetic faults."

Ru Sa continued to glare at her, unimpressed. "So you went after the little buck like a rat in heat and left the door to the lab wide open."

It was not a question, and Chive did not bother to answer. She merely nodded.

Ru Sa leaned closer. "Fool," he whispered dangerously, and then right before Goten's eyes proceeded to beat her very badly.

Goten had never seen anything so horrible; and yet, it seemed that he could not look away. He had known _of_ such things as spousal abuse before - hell, it was common enough on Earth - but this was done with such a ferocity and cruelty that it turned his stomach. Still, he _could not look away._

Not even when Ru Sa finished the beating part.

Not even when he raped her afterwards.

When the captain stood to go, apparently much calmed, Goten was finally able to look away and hunker back down behind his cover, feeling sick to his stomach. Ru Sa went to his space pod without a word and left, going Goten did not know where and causing a strong draft of air when the pod's auto-lock launch tunnel opened to the suction of space. Chive lay on the floor, crying softly.

Goten felt a strong urge to go to her. Well, naturally; he was a good guy - he was _supposed_ to go to help the oppressed, appease the suffering. But he felt a tinge of guilt for not having done anything earlier - not that he could have done any good, since Ru Sa could have smashed him without a thought - and now, he also felt a tiny bit of fear. He wasn't sure what they had been talking about, why they had been using his name, but Goten felt sure that he was better off to stay right where he was.

Chive got up and brushed herself off. Her wounds were already healing, and she looked extremely pissed.

Goten knew if he revealed himself right now, she would kill him. Saying nothing and keeping his ki very low, he watched her pick herself up and leave, turning out the lights as she went.

Swallowing hard and trembling, trying without much success to purge what he had seen from his mind, Goten stayed where he was, and waited.

* * *

**Interlude 16.1: Cumber**

Cumber looked dumbly at the intercom and blinked as if unable to comprehend what he had just heard. " _What_ did you say?" he asked again.

On the other end, Ru Sa sighed; he was having a very long day, and was tired of having idiots to deal with.

"I said, I'm going to Earth to pick up the reconnaissance team, and then we're leaving. Going back. All the way to you-know-where. Believe me Cumber, we don't have a choice about this; Chive left the lab door open and Vejiita- _sama_ got in there and destroyed all the stuff. It will take us a year to build that much up again." Actually, Vejiita hadn't exactly _destroyed_ it; he'd somehow used his ki to melt the cabinet shelves over and around all the chemicals, in such a way that it was impossible to get to said chemicals without ruining them. It was a very cruel thing to do. Ru Sa wondered that he hadn't thought of doing something like it himself.

"But... can't we just keep going? Make it on route? There are plenty of Nameks here..." Cumber was trying to see a way out of this solution; Ru Sa couldn't blame him. Going back to that dead world held no appeal for him, either.

"No, and no," said Ru Sa as gently as he could. "We can't. As we keep going back in time on our mission, stopping at earlier and earlier points, some prying god or Saiyan or who knows what would discover that we were keeping Nameks for the purpose of extraction, and wouldn't go over very well at all, would it? They're awfully noisy when it happens, you know. We couldn't keep it secret."

Cumber's brain was whirring with ideas; Ru Sa could almost hear it. "But what if we didn't leave earth this time?" he said. "Maybe we could have someone in the ship working on the Nameks, and then on earth..."

"And then we'd have to worry about telepathic help-signals from the Nameks and interfering kaious and everything else," Ru Sa interrupted. "There is no other way to do this, and you know it. Now, even _if_ the reconnaissance mission was successful, before we could go back to stop Gero we would still have to go back and replenish our supplies of the substance. It's not fair, but that's how life is. Get over it, Cumber."

Cumber sighed and rubbed his temples. "What do you want me to do with G... Kakarotto?" he wondered.

"What do you think?" Ru Sa asked sharply; he had had his fill of stupid questions today. "Just leave a good amount for me, okay? He's strong enough - I want to share the wealth."

"All right," Cumber said, still rubbing his temples and closing his eyes. "Oh, one more thing..." he asked.

"What?" Ru Sa growled at him.

"Do you have Cabbage over there? Because we can't find him, although he IS supposed to be on this part of the ship."

There was silence for one moment on the other end of the transmission. "Hello?" Cumber prompted.

"No, we don't," Ru Sa said, sounding much more dismissive than he should have. "I guess one of the Saiyans must have gotten him. Over and out." And he clicked off the comm link.

Cumber stared at the device; he had been lied to - he knew that instinctively. But why? What did Ru Sa have to lie about? What did it matter whether Cabbage was there or not? What was _important_ enough to make him want to lie?

Cumber did not know that it had been Cabbage's body which Gohan had found; Cabbage's husked corpse which had been left to float in space along with Kakarotto's heavily injured son. He did not know these things; but he was a very intelligent man, and persistent enough to mull over what few facts he had. As he mulled, he guessed, and a fearful certainty began to steal over him. 

"Oh, hell," he muttered to himself, not wanting to think what he was thinking. If you couldn't trust someone you had known for two millennia, then who _could_ you trust?

Deep in thought and frowning with the weight of it, Cumber went his way and continued repairs on his half of the vessel. At least _he_ would be ready when the time came for rejoining the broken parts of ship; they would not fail their trip through the Black because of him. No, sir.

Besides, he had other things to put off.

He didn't really want to hurt Gokuu; and that was something that he was not, at this point, able to admit to himself at all.

* * *

Vejiita ran along the passage, carrying Bra in his arms and not bothering to worry about stealth. Odd thing was, now that he was not _trying_ to avoid anybody, it seemed absolutely everyone had gone away.

They were approaching the main maintenance corridor, near which he thought he could recall an access hallway that led to the lower portions of the ship. There, hopefully, he would find some of their space pods.

He suddenly gasped and slipped to a stop, ki sense flaring. Heh; So **that's** where they all were _._ It appeared that all the Enemy on this ship had gathered by the remains of Chive's lab and were having a discussion. Well, no need to join in; grinning like the devil, Vejiita turned and crept back the way he had come. If they all wanted to cluster together and talk about his handiwork, then fine - they could do that. He had better things to do elsewhere.

Besides, he didn't want to get too close; just the thought of the ease with which Chive had slipped into his mind was frightening.

"Bra," he whispered to her very quietly. "Which way?"

Wordlessly, she pointed to the left, and he followed. They sneaked through a door and into a hallway, heading toward the loading bay. If Vejiita was right - and he usually was - that was where they'd find a ship; some way to get off this damned death-boat and back down to earth. He just hoped it wasn't too far away.

* * *

**Interlude 16.1: Metamorphosis**

_Sound asleep, Dende felt no surprise as Trunks came walking over the horizon toward him._

_"Trunks!" he said. "How nice to meet you here!"_

_Trunks nodded once, all business and very, very serious. His hair had grown a lot longer since Dende had last seen him, and his clothes..._

_"Goodness," Dende said with a chuckle. "Your outfit's a mess. Why, you're even missing your shoulder patch!" Dende could afford to be blithe; this was a dream, after all._

_Trunks nodded once again. "Yes," he said. "It was torn off last time I struggled. Dende, you're not awake."_

_"Yes," agreed Dende pleasantly, enjoying the way this was turning out._

_"But you're not really dreaming," Trunks continued, and Dende felt his heart drop into his stomach._

_"Oh?" he said._

_"I am going to learn from you," said Trunks mysteriously. "But don't worry - you're not to teach me now, and you won't teach me directly later. You must go back and learn all you can. It is essential that you do so. The plan of the Kyuujinshu must be completed - but they themselves must fail. When the time comes, you will know what to do." Then Trunks turned, casual as anything, and began walking away. The horizon remained dead as he did so._

_"Vejiita," Dende found himself calling out after the retreating boy. "Vejiita, wait!" But no - Trunks, not Vejiita - was gone, and Dende was once again all alone. All alone..._

_Suddenly he knew where this was; this was the Black, right in the heart of it, and here was nothing._ He _was nothing. And as he began to panic, light from nowhere flooded his eyes and Dende sat up screaming._

"Dende! DENDE!!" And Bulma, true to form, slapped him in the face.

"What? Vejiita? Trunks?" Dende blurted, blinking into the bright overhead light and realizing slowly that they were not there. At least, not the Trunks or Vejiita to whom he was referring.

Bulma blinked at him. "Dende," she hissed. "What happened? You know, you're very lucky not to have woken Trunks."

"Trunks..." Dende repeated, grabbing either side of his head. "Bulma?" he asked. "Do you know anything about Kyuujinshu?" Bulma blinked at him again.

"Old Ones? What?"

Dende shook his head. "Never mind. I... I need to sleep. And then tomorrow..." Dende suddenly looked determined. Damnit - even an even-tempered Namek could have enough. "I'm getting to the bottom of this," he announced, and Bulma stared at him.

"Hokay," she intoned far too lightly and stepped back. "Just remember: time is not real."

"What?" Dende looked at her.

"Well, it's not," Bulma insisted, hands on her hips, and she then faded away. Dende pounded his fists on the bed.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" he said, and then he woke up.

 _...really_ woke up - and found himself ensconced comfortably in the bedroom Bulma had given him when he'd first arrived. He was also sitting straight up.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," he muttered to himself, tired of dreams within dreams, and fell back exhaustedly on the bed. If this had been part of the "trials," then it had been a fairly useless...

A short, sharp noise came from outside in the bushes.

Dende sat back up. _What was that?_ he wondered, and clambered off his bed to go take a look. Quieter than quiet, he crept to the window.

And looked straight into the eyes of one of the strangest beings he had ever seen.

The creature floated outside his window, basically humanoid in shape, but the angles were... wrong. Too sharp, somehow; almost two dimensional in appearance. Other than that, it almost seemed to have Saiyan hair...

"Who are you?" asked Dende softly, wondering if he were dreaming but knowing that he was not.

"I am Kyuujinshu. Recently I am called Cabbage," said the white skinned monster in a very reasonable voice.

"Cabbage?" repeated Dende. "But that's a Saiyan name."

"And so I was for a long time," said Cabbage evenly. "And before that, I was Tsufuru - and before that, many other things. I am myself, and Cabbage is as good a name as any. Don't you think?" Cabbage smiled, looking steadily into Dende's eyes..

"Why are you telling me this?" Dende wondered, and Cabbage cocked his head to the side as though this a fairly amusing question.

"Because you are not from here," he said calmly. "You are from outside; and so, you may be able to help us. We need to find the source of the Black."

Suddenly, for Dende, several very large things seemed to click into place at once.

"You're on a mission to stop it," he said quietly, and the Kyuujinshu nodded.

"We are," he said. "Although I fear we may never reach it in time."

"Reach _what_ in time?" asked Dende, but then Cabbage looked to his left and inhaled sharply. "Trunks," he said. "I must go," he told Dende, and then before Dende's eyes he changed shape - changed _ki_ \- and became something else entirely. The odd-looking bird looked meaningfully at him once, and then flapped off and into the night.

Dende was still standing there looking puzzled when Trunks came around to his side of the house.

"Who were you talking to, Dende?" he asked, and Dende thought he knew this odd incarnation of Trunks well enough to guess that lies would not be tolerated.

"I don't know," answered Dende truthfully enough, and said no more. Trunks stared at him.

 _Heavens,_ thought Dende. _Does nobody around here think it odd to hover outside people's second floor windows at three o' clock in the morning?_

"Good enough," pronounced Trunks solemnly, and continued on his circuitous flight around the house.

"Glad it's enough for you," muttered Dende, and went back to bed. Damn it all, he was going to get a good night's sleep no matter what was going on.

* * *

Vejiita turned around and sent a powerful blast down the hallway; there were screams as his beam hit home. Grabbing up his daughter again, he leaped into the air and flew down the corridor, heading toward the landing bay. Somebody jumped in front of him, but Vejiita did not slow; he simply slammed into that somebody with both fists. Bra clung to his underside like a little monkey.

Vejiita could kick himself; how he could have _possibly_ been stupid enough to walk right into a trap like that... And Bra had warned him, hadn't she? Oh, yes - she had looked him right in the eye and shook her little head "no," blue-green locks bouncing everywhere. But did he listen? Oh, no - not the almighty frigging Prince of the Saiya-jin.

"Stop him!" rang out from behind, and Vejiita imprinted his boot into somebody's gut. Damned if they were getting him. _Damned_ if they were.

Bra scrambled up higher on his body and whispered in his ear.

"Just in there, papa," she said, and he followed her lead without a word. They slammed inside a room and powered down immediately; well, he did anyway. Bra stood on the floor and concentrated very, very hard.

Outside, two rather singed squadrons of bad guys met in the hallway and started yelling.

"Where did he go?"

"Which way?"

"What the hell _happened_ to him?"

Then, horribly, they began speaking in a language that Vejiita had never heard before. His face grew shocked, then puzzled, and he decided to power up lest one of them should unexpectedly come in this room.

Bra stopped him.

"No, papa," she said quietly. "Let me handle this." She concentrated; and all of a sudden, the warriors outside started talking about Chive.

 _What?_ Vejiita wondered to himself, but whatever he was going to think next was cut off.

 _ **...HELP ME...**_ thundered through his mind in Chive's voice, so strongly that he clutched the sides of his head and only barely stifled a moan. The warriors outside all gasped and took off for the control room; Bra looked up at him apologetically.

"Sorry, papa," she said. "That came out a little stronger than I expected."

Vejiita stared blankly at his child, whom he was beginning to think he did not know at all.

"Now come on," she ordered. "Ru Sa's not back yet, and he's the only one left alive on this ship who could contend with you. Come," she ordered, and grabbing his larger hand in her own, she pulled him toward the doorway.

"Contend?" Vejiita repeated, his head still throbbing with... Chive's?... voice. "When did you start using words like 'contend?'"

"Since... oh, never mind," Bra said, and she _sounded_ like Chive for a moment. Vejiita pulled up sharply.

"You..." he began, and Bra turned to him with fierce eyes.

"We have no time for this!" she cried, and he stared at her in suspicious shock. "Please, papa," she amended, looking and sounding like herself once more and Vejiita decided not to argue. Just so long as she did not look at him again with those eyes that were not her own.

* * *

Goten had just about gotten over his nerves and talked himself into leaving when shouts and pounding came from outside the door.

"Oh, no..." he moaned to himself and hid again as the door slid open. Vejiita came flying into the room, blasting behind him and causing apparent chaos to follow in his wake. Punching in some sort of command code, he shut and locked the door.

"Ha!" he announced triumphantly. "Fools never should have let me watch them punch in those codes..."

From outside, the pounding grew more insistent - but Goten was not worried. Nothing was going to get through that Junsei Aion any time soon.

Vejiita looked around him, trying to choose a ship. He chose.

"Ah," he said, one hand going protectively around Bra's shoulders. "That one looks about right." With that, he headed toward the pod of his choice.

"Hey!" said Goten, and jumped out from behind his cover. Vejiita spun toward him and Goten came with .08 seconds of being blasted into eternity.

"Goten! Damnit!" Vejiita said and lowered his shaking hands. "I almost... stupid boy, what on earth possessed you to do that?"

Goten shrugged. "I dunno," he said mildly, the earlier evening's horror wearing off him at last. "You leaving?"

"Damn straight I am, now let me think..." Hm. Three - that made things a bit more difficult. Two - if one was small - could fit into a normal space pod, but _three_...

Vejiita cursed the dilemma that once again Kakarotto (or one of his kin, anyway) had gotten him into.

The problem was never resolved; at that very moment, the auto-lock launch tunnel opened, making air swirl around them as it was sucked into space, and Ru Sa's large vessel started to dock. Vejiita tensed.

"Shit!" he said, and without waiting for anything else to happen, picked Bra up bodily and shoved her into a nearby space pod. He started pressing buttons.

"Papa, what are you **doing?** " asked Bra, panicky.

"What does it look like, brat?" He pressed a final button, then frowned when whatever was supposed to light up didn't.

"It didn't work," he said with a kind of breathless horror, and pulled Bra out like a sack of wheat and raced toward another pod nearby. He wasn't fast enough; Ru Sa's ship came in, and the auto-lock tunnel closed behind him with a clang that seemed somehow too final.

"Goten!" warned Vejiita, and tossing his daughter behind him to what he hoped was a safe position - _had_ to be a safe position - powered up, and waited for Ru Sa to come out.

Ru Sa did just that - and paused in the doorway of his ship. He looked warily from Goten to Vejiita and back again, then toward the locked door keeping him from his comrades. "Interesting," he rumbled, and stepped out.

"Get out of our way, Rhubarb," Vejiita ordered, his ki aura flashing gold. "Or I will kill you where you stand."

Ru Sa did not laugh; he did not mock. He simply looked deeply into Vejiita's eyes and mused. "Will you, now," he said curiously, as though talking to himself. Then he smiled; a truly horrible thing that did not touch his eyes. "I think not," he offered as an alternative, and then before Vejiita got the chance to even move the captain was right in his face.

Feeling extremely useless, Goten dropped back and tried to protect Bra; there was no way he could keep up with that speed. No way.

Ru Sa and Vejiita clashed violently, making the air crackle with energy and the room echo with their shouts. In raw ki, Vejiita was more powerful; but in brute strength, Ru Sa held the mastery. He also had three thousand years of fighting experience on his side.

Almost more quickly than Vejiita's eye could follow, Ru Sa feinted twice to the left and suddenly spun around and slammed his fist into the prince's face. Vejiita was helpless against such strength; he blacked out momentarily and plummeted to the ground.

Bra screamed, and Ru Sa was at her side in less than a moment.

"And now it's your turn, little girl," he smiled, and reached for her.

"YAAH!!" Goten came out of nowhere and did the only thing he could think of - he grabbed Ru Sa by the tail and swung the larger man around and into the wall.

* * *

Kaiou-sama nodded, pleased, but there were tears streaming down his cheeks. "Yes, Goten," he said. "Yes... change the balance."

* * *

Ru Sa picked himself up, locked in a fury beyond fury, and roared; _he_ powered up, and as he did he ceased to look anything at all like a Saiya-jin. He raced forward and slammed into Goten quite hard, his shoulder knocking more than one of the boy's ribs loose. However, Goten was not a weak boy; thinking faster in this situation than his brother had, he pulled his arms back and shouted, "KAMEKAMEHA!" - even after all this time, he still got the title of his father's signature shot wrong. Fortunately the name did not change the effectiveness; the beam of power which shot from his hands pushed Ru Sa back once more.

Vejiita tried to stand, shakily; it felt as though every bone in his head had been jarred loose. He saw, as if through a haze of blood, Ru Sa rise on the other side of the room - and furiously point his hands at Bra.

"No!"

* * *

Kaiou-sama sobbed only once. "Now," he said.

* * *

"No!" Goten echoed, and, closer than Vejiita, faster than the same, he flung himself in front of Bra just as the blast came from Ru Sa.

He had time to scream only once.

* * *

"Goten!" Vejiita had time to cry only once, and then Ru Sa had changed tactics and was on him. The big lug wouldn't get away; he was too close for Vejiita to get his hands free enough to do any of his ki attacks, and at close range even a Super Saiyan was no match for the recently enhanced Ru Sa - the man had drained what was left of his comrade Shitake back on earth.

Just before he passed out, Vejiita managed to spit in Ru Sa's face: "Damned Tsufuru..."

Ru Sa smiled, a terrifying thing with his white face and black eyes, and said, "Tsufuru? Whatever gave you that idea?"

Then Vejiita knew no more.

* * *

Kaiou-sama wept. "Thank you, Goten," he said. "And Gokuu... please... forgive me."


	17. Aware

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ru Sa is terrifying; Bra is clever; Vegeta is hella depressed.
> 
> And Cumber might be on the verge of the biggest decision of his life.

Vejiita woke up slowly and in great pain. It seemed to take forever to climb out of the noiseless dark that was his subconscious, scrambling toward the surface and toward the pain, because pain was not good but where there was pain there was _awareness._ The Saiyan prince gasped convulsively and jerked his entire body, as though defending from an expected blow.

There was nothing; no one waiting to greet him, no one trying to attack. Vejiita found himself standing propped against a wall with his arms pulled tightly above his head, manacled like a common prisoner.

_Heh; chains. What kind of a moron..._

Vejiita grit his teeth and strained, pulling and fully expecting the chains to come right out of their posts -

\- and nothing happened. Nothing; the metal was as implacable as his ego, but considerably more durable. After a short time of struggling, he gave up.

Observing and dealing with obdurate bonds, Vejiita failed initially to notice his cellmate. Bra sat on a bench nearby, chained as well but with considerably more slack. She probably could have stood and walked around a bit, had she been so inclined.

She was not.

Bra sniffled once.

"Bra!" Vejiita exclaimed, wondering why on earth they would have put his daughter in such close proximity to him. His daughter who was - come to think of it - not looking so well at the moment.

"Bra?" he asked gently, realizing in passing that if he had ever taken for granted his ability to touch her, he never would again. Whatever daze she was in, she was not snapping out of it. "Bra!" he shouted, and at that point the door to the room slid open and Ru Sa came in.

"Heh," he said, crossing his arms. "I was beginning to be afraid you'd have to spend some time in the regen tank. You took quite a beating, my prince." And Ru Sa smiled far too possessively for Vejiita's comfort.

"And what, exactly, do you have in mind for me that requires my well-being?" Vejiita asked as calmly as he could; he did not at all like the way the hateful captain was glancing at his daughter.

"Oh, this and that," Ru Sa answered dismissively. "I swear, Vejiita, your daughter grows more lovely every d..."

Bra suddenly began to scream, loudly and piercingly, a high-pitched shriek of horror and fear. The awful thing was that she was not looking at Ru Sa while she did it; she was not looking at _anything._

Ru Sa frowned, wincing slightly against the shrill quality of it. "Tell your daughter to shut up, Vejiita, or I'll knock her in the head."

Vejiita was no dummy; he didn't bother with verbal commands. Instead, hoping that what he had heard about the Sheinrei-Tsu being unable to communicate via telepathy had been wrong...

 _...Bra..._ he sent her way, concentrating so hard he forgot to breathe. _...Bra, listen to me... papa wants you to stop screaming now... stop it... just stop..._ And incredibly, amazingly, Bra stopped; oh, not all at once - her shrieks slowly degraded into terror-filled wails, then voiced snuffles, and then nothing at all. She just sat there, panting, still not focusing her eyes on anything. Vejiita turned to Ru Sa.

"What did you DO to her?" he hissed, full of bile and fury. Ru Sa shrugged innocently.

"Nothing, yet," he admitted. "I don't know what has her so up..." he stopped. His eyes suddenly went wide and his mouth pulled back in a grimace, as though he were witnessing a transformation of unbelievable rendering.

"Vejiita, look!" he cried, and clamped one iron hand on the prince's shoulder. " _Look at your daughter!_ "

Vejiita looked and at first saw nothing - then, slowly, as through a haze, he saw what Ru Sa's eyes must see - he saw instead of a frightened little girl a young woman, one whom he did not recognize but looked startlingly familiar - startlingly like Bulma. She was tall and willowy, slim and with a floral grace that Bulma did not have; and yet it was unquestionably Bra. Her face was a study in beauty through quiet; subtlety, light and shadow made up her visage, and there was power there - oh yes, there was, but it was well hidden. Vejiita gaped at what it seemed his daughter had become.

Then Ru Sa's fist rocketed off the side of his face and brought him firmly back into reality again.

The captain growled like a trapped animal.

"She is Sheinrei-Tsu!" he spit, looking as though he wanted to maul Vejiita for fathering such a creature. "How dare you not tell me!"

Vejiita blinked, trying to look ignorant. "She is Sheinrei-Tsu? How do you know?" Ru Sa hauled off and hit him again; Vejiita wondered vaguely if he could spit his loose teeth out fast enough to be used as weapons.

"You think I didn't know that you knew, baka?" Ru Sa roared. "The moment I touched you I knew! The moment I saw her, I knew! I knew! And you tried to hide it from _me_?" He pulled back as though to hit Vejiita, again, but instead leaned close and whispered dangerously.

"I had wondered how it had been done to Chive," he said quietly. "When I found her there was nothing left. Her soul was gone, taken, as though it had been ripped right out of her body." Ru Sa leaned closer, his eyes blazing with fury. "She did not even have anything left to give me."

Of course, Vejiita did not understand this comment, as he had never seen a person drained; but the intent was clear enough from the tone. Ru Sa suddenly chuckled and stepped back.

"At least now I think I can tell you what happened," he said, sparing Bra a side glance - Bra, whose face was pulled back in a sort of silent scream. "I am old, Vejiita," he said, his voice heavy with both pride and weariness. "Older than you can have any imagining. To live a life as long as this sometimes gives you... Other Sight that you could not have in any other case. You and I just saw your daughter as she is meant to be - as she will be, when I get through with her."

Ru Sa turned to Vejiita, one man to another, and said, "I'm taking your daughter."

Vejiita's eyes went wide; he did not mean to rape her and kill her, as he had originally; the chikusho was actually going to _raise_ her, as his own.

"Bastard! You're mad!" Vejiita spit his distaste, but could do nothing in the way of opposition. Ru Sa smiled.

"Besides," he said congenially. "It's my fault she's like this," and he waved his hand in her unresponsive direction. "When a Sheinrei-Tsu latches onto someone this old - older than Chive, although how a 6-year-old was able to take _her_ , I will never understand - it sort of works in reverse. I see, now; she was afraid to connect with me because she might lose herself in the process - but she did it anyway, to help you. Heh. She thought she actually might be able to save you when she saw me pounding out your life's breath." He actually had the gall to chuckle.

Vejiita stared at him, more convinced than ever of this man's madness.

"Oh, don't worry, she'll be all right," Ru Sa said in response to Vejiita's shocked look. "She's just had a bit of a jolt; too much information, I think the phrase goes. Heh." He rubbed his head thoughtfully and smiled. "And I didn't even know she was in there," he quipped, then leaned forward into Vejiita's pale face for one more stab.

"Just remember this, Prince, as you keep to yourself and sleep. _You_ did this to her; if she had not been trying to defend you, this never would have happened. And now, thanks to you, she will also have new ownership - as soon as she recovers enough to make the transition safe." Ru Sa fixed him with a look of cool disgust. "You bring harm to all those you love, don't you, Vejiita-sama," and without another word, Ru Sa turned and went out of the room.

Vejiita stood against the wall, staring helplessly after him, and had nothing to say. He looked at the almost-broken wreck of a daughter at his side, and felt despondency wash like cold and icy water over his skin.

* * *

**Interlude 17.1: Moot**

Nobody was fussing any more over Dende's body, and that was good; Moot had found it extremely difficult to concentrate with everybody panicking like that.

It was very odd, what had happened to the kami; the others had come in to find Dende quite literally out cold on the floor. Barely breathing, temperature so far below normal as to make him extremely cool to the touch, Dende's body seemed to be only half there - there were times that you could actually see right _through_ him.

Reep had only one explanation; "Dream walking," he'd said, and would say no more. Apparently, Dende - his acutal _SELF_ \- had somehow been stretched to be in more than one place at a time. At least, so was Murri's guesstimation.

Oddly, it seemed to Moot that this was hardly important; Dende was elsewhere, but the scraps of Prophecy remained, and for some reason, they were taking up all his attention. They were so _familiar,_ somehow, as though he'd seen them before, or maybe heard them in a dream. Moot bent with solemn concentration over the desk Dende had vacated, and so did not at first notice Reep staring at him.

"Know them well, do you," Reep said quietly, and Moot jumped.

"Um, yes," he said with a tremble, surprised that Reep had discerned that; it was another concrete yet vague feeling that Moot had been unable to word. "That's just how I feel. How did you know that?"

Reep moved a bit closer; he had been faithfully guarding the un-solid body of Dende when everyone had been around, but now it was just Moot and Reep in the room and one very cold Namek. No fear of interruptions.

"Part three are you of a story half done," Reep said, and Moot looked at him with interest.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Reep nodded toward the littered desktop. "Can you put those in order?"

Moot looked at him curiously. "Do you think I can?"

"Not what I asked you, little one," said Reep kindly, and for the first time Moot became aware of how much older than he Reep really was.

"Okay," he said mildly, and with all the enthusiasm of child puzzle-solving, went straight to work. Reep watched him, his expression unreadable.

"No stopping now," Reep said to himself, but Moot did not hear him. He was too busy concentrating.

"Hm," Moot said, small green brow furrowed in concentration as he talked to himself. "I think this part would go here - first, and then... this seems like a good place to start..."

He had taken "Brings light into darkness, gods' only hope; Time's end, worlds fend; death - quicksilver rope." Then he had placed, "Half is light that rages, only pure of heart be sufficient then to break apart the Beginning of End; whole, then, must move to make whole the part."

"That make sense to you?" he asked Reep enthusiastically, and Reep nodded.

"Keep going," he said, and settled down by Dende's gently breathing body to wait.

Moot kept going.

After a while, he sat back and looked with pride on his handiwork. He hadn't been able to fit everything in to his satisfaction, but it looked pretty good for right now.

_Pure of heart, and pure of will;  
making sleep and slumbers still.  
Slumber not, to 'venge, to die;  
rage is pure as love is high._

_Ice with fire's heart, flame never still -  
twice perished, thrice cherished - strong, the untapped will.  
Rage rules over the night and makes day;   
Anger must dry, love fade away.   
First - rage made whole, the bearer of life,   
Yet first to come is second in right._

That was all he'd put together just yet. It sort of made sense, but not quite, like a mathematical problem just out of his grasp; he could understand the components used, but not the principle behind them; as a result, the concept as a whole was out of his reach.

That was okay; Moot was young enough that this still took on the aspects of a game to him. If he got it wrong, so what? Dende would be back soon, and when he was - well, Moot just sort of _knew_ it would all be all right.

Besides - it was making Reep happy.

Moot had never had a pet, but if he could have had his choice, Reep would have been it - assuming that Reep were really pet material, over which issue Moot did not wrestle much. Reep, at the moment, had started bouncing again, which he had not done since they'd found the first parts of the Prophecy on the wall outside.

"Oh, wonderful, WONDERFUL," insisted Reep, hopping madly around the room and clearing on Dende's cold form by a matter of some feet. "Joy unmeasured in the paths of spring! Time is rushing - soon Dende is back, and then everything moves so fast! Oh, oh, oh, so GOOD! Hurry! Hurry, do not rest!"

Always one to oblige, Moot turned back to the desk and continued working, and if Reep's desperate glance turned protective and slightly possessive later on, well, what of that? Moot was getting the job done, and that was what really mattered.

* * *

Bra stirred gently, very careful still to not focus her eyes on anything. Always let them underestimate you - that was something Trunks had taught her, and fortunately for her, she had taken it to heart. It was true - Ru Sa _was_ too much for her to take now. Now. But she had come close - and he had never known how close.

She knew what Ru Sa believed about Sheinrei-Tsu; knew that if he had been concentrating back, he could have indeed initiated a "reverse" and taken HER soul instead. Fortunately, she had foreseen this; read it in his mind, and even glimpsed remainders of those to whom he'd successfully done it before. Ru Sa was a worthy adversary indeed.

She had known what he would expect her to do once he made the discovery that she was Sheinrei-Tsu. So, helpful as always, she obliged.

She had to admit that the screaming like that was a really good effect; and it hadn't been that difficult to pull off. The images of what Ru Sa wanted to do to her were echoing through her mind even now, and filling her with a sickly horror that made her father's own disgust seem petty; and so, she screamed.

Ru Sa had fallen for this beautifully; as far as he was concerned, her shock and terror were genuine. Bra was only sorry that she had had to fool her poor papa as well. Vejiita was in less than great shape mentally as it was, vacillating back and forth between visions of deliriously graphic revenge and periods of total depression, in which he blamed himself for getting him and his daughter into this in the first place.

Her poor papa.

Those last comments of Ru Sa's were really eating into him. The captain had some limited telepathic abilities of his own, and he had picked up skittering across Vejiita's brain lingering thoughts of guilt and death, stemming all the way back to his rather dramatic childhood. He had strategically commented to trigger them.

Even now, as much as Vejiita KNEW nothing that had happened was really his fault, he was able to devote only half his brain to planning revenge and mayhem upon his captors; the other half was devoted to blaming himself for bringing disaster upon those whom he had sworn himself to protect.

_"...bring harm to all those you love..."_

Horrible thing to say, and the worst part about it was that it had just enough truth to stick. The quiet voice in his subconscious was still there, still reminding him - after all, if he had not been aboard Freeza's ship, then his father the king would not have come for him, and Freeza would not have attacked, right? Well, no, he knew that was nonsense; the Freeza/Saiya-jin alliance had been a disaster waiting to happen, and it only took the birth of one with extremely high ki level to set it off. Oh, but wait - that babe just happened to be him, so once again it was his fault.

Round and round, back and forth he went, swinging between personal guilt and satisfyingly graphic visions of revenge.

Bra shook her head. Adults were always complicated, and her father more so than anyone else she had ever met; he was very confusing. No matter what his conscious plans were, certain thoughts always remained as an undercurrent and a motivation: _not_ to fail, _never_ to fail, never again to be less than what he was.

Bra sighed deeply and waited it out. If her father's slowly forming plan had any merit - and his plans usually did - then sooner or later they would both have their hands free and be able to get out of here. Or wreak revenge. Either course seemed good enough to him, and Bra saw no reason to argue.

Neither of them knew that the two parts of the ship were soon due to be reunited, and that would change absolutely everything..

* * *

**Interlude 17.2: Cumber**

Well, Cumber was ready. He had completed repairs on his part of the ship - albeit not as well as Chive would have - and it was at last ready to be made whole, one with itself. He still didn't understand what had caused Ru Sa to initiate the separation anyway; something to do with the Saiyan king's older child, that much he understood, but beyond that...

Personally, Cumber suspected that Ru Sa had been trying to charge their part of the time machine and botched it up. He smiled, relishing the thought of the inglorious Ru Sa messing up on anything, and then his thoughts went back to Chive. Eh; she had treated him once, just as a thank-you for helping her out with something. But she had also made it clear that that was to be the _only_ time she stepped out of protocol enough to do such a thing. It was dangerous, fraternizing among the ranks; even when children were no longer possible, it always resulted in inner friction.

Not that that had stopped Ru Sa; and there had been plenty of friction there, oh yes - though not of the type Chive was referring to. No, it was better just not to think about it, to shove it to the back burner and not consider it at all.

And then Gokuu had just had to go and peg it on the head.

He loved her. He did; he couldn't really help it. Cumber had never known a woman so brave, so intelligent - so cool and calm under pressure. So very, very deadly, but that had its own peculiar charm too, didn't it? Yes, it did.

Cumber sighed and pushed all such thoughts from his mind; they went as easily as crows chased from a cornfield - and would be back just as predictably, too, but that wasn't his problem now. He sighed again and picked up his tools as he stood, looking for something else to do. He couldn't think of a thing; the damage was all repaired, and every piece of machinery was running smoothly.

Cumber found something to do anyway. He didn't want to have to hurt Son Gokuu, although capturing or incapacitating that man was clearly the next duty in his list. Why he felt reluctance he had not yet been able to figure out. It seemed like a perfectly logical and wonderful thing to do; Saiya-jin were the best for boosting one's own faulty gene system, and they had been in rather scarce supply of late. But this was _Gokuu_ \- it just didn't seem right somehow, or even excusable.

Sometimes, the question of morality versus loyalty came up, and usually Cumber opted for the latter. It was, in general, a much safer choice. He was not sure which he would choose this time. Cabbage's disappearance kept playing on his mind, and Ru Sa's dismissal of the matter made it worse. Cumber thought about this, and he wondered. He wondered about Ru Sa; he wondered about their mission; he wondered about everything.

And he wondered if it would be worth it, just once, to let Gokuu go.


	18. Ru Sa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ru Sa reflects on his past and just why he hates Vegeta so much.
> 
> The gods - all but two - abandon the world.
> 
> Gokuu gives himself up to be rejoined with Vegeta - and he knows something big and crazy is heading their way.

Vejiita's raging thoughts could be heard as far away as the auxiliary bridge port; at least, they could until Ru Sa closed the door. Enough was enough, and Saiyans in mental anguish could only be amusing for so long. Then they ruined supper.

Ru Sa lay back on Vejiita's cot and contemplated the day's events; supper, as it was, would be long in coming tonight - thanks to a certain stupid female and an embittered Saiyan prince, there wasn't enough to go around, and that meant the mechanical technicians got first dibs. Ru Sa gritted his teeth and exercised his patience; at least _he'd_ had some nourishment before returning back home. _He_ wouldn't be dissolving any time soon, thank you very much.

Home; heh. This ship was now his home. Ru Sa had lived on countless worlds and in countless times and had called many places "home" before, but it had been centuries since "home" had been anything resembling a ship. The last "home" he'd had had been Vejiita-sei. For a moment Ru Sa allowed himself to revel in the glory of those memories; he - they - had lived on that planet accepted and unsuspected for almost two hundred years. There really was no better place; in all the universe, no victim sufficed so well as a full-blooded Saiya-jin, and all his people seemed to grow tremendously in strength and stability during their stay.

Then less than a month after King Vejiita had been crowned, he had ordered an investigation into the activities of some under Ru Sa's command. Not Ru Sa himself, ironically enough; he supposed he was Saiyan-ly vicious enough to avoid such scrutiny. However, they had almost been caught - almost _pre-guessed_ , which is worse - and in the end had had to flee. Up and leave, like vagabonds in the night. Ru Sa had never forgiven King Vejiita for that.

They had been working on their time machine for almost two years when the Black struck; deep out in space, they had seen it coming before anyone else, and frantically tried to keep ahead of it while they finished their work. By the time they finally learned to time jump, they had flown almost to the end of the galaxy, all the way to earth, and had been more than a little surprised to find that one of the very high ki-levels on the planet was the brat-child of Vejiita - alive and well and, wonder of wonders, with a human mate and child. But there was no time for such oddities; with no clear idea of what they were doing, they jumped, and so missed out on the final end of _that_ particular universe, that particular timeline. At least in that place of being, the Black won out.

The Kyuujinshu were survivors; as a people, they had lasted centuries longer than their natures decreed by mere, stubborn force of their will. They had even mutated their own bodies in an attempt to last longer still; and though in the process they had destroyed their ability to procreate, at least they had guaranteed themselves one thing: conditional immortality.

Not bad for a no-name people who had existed before time.

They had emerged from their time-jump to find themselves by a somewhat battered earth and in a completely different timeline - one in which Vejiita was dead and his half-breed son ran the show. For all it mattered. And by some bizarre twist of fate or god's cruel whim, they had also ended up in the very place where the Black had originated to begin with; for the second time, they witnessed It creep and consume all there was of reality.

Ru Sa had been incensed by this; it had seemed almost a moral offense to be cursed with such luck, gods or no gods. An unaccustomed wave of helplessness had washed over him as he watched his people try to charge the time machine again for yet another emergency jump, having no better recourse before them than trying to run.

Before they left, however, Cabbage had made a horrific discovery: the humans knew where the Black came from. Apparently they had a book which traced its source - to a mad scientist named Dr. Gero. So Ru Sa reinvented their mission: go back, discover where this Gero found or invented the Black to begin with, and stop him. They didn't dare do more than that; the timelines were messed up enough as it was, and they had already seen one timeline meet its end.

It certainly seemed simple enough, solid enough - a good enough plan. It even seemed to be a further sign when Bulma, Vejiita's past mate, invented a substance that was resistant to the Black and could be used to make their ship safe.

Then what had happened? Trunks, the son of Vejiita, interfered and ruined everything. He had even, by unknown means, turned one of Ru Sa's most faithful followers against him - Cabbage.

A thoroughly illogical hatred had begun to seethe in Ru Sa as he watched this other Earth and its severely reduced population struggle to survive; watched as the one remaining Warrior did his best to keep it from being destroyed and insured its destruction in the process. It seemed that for the last fifty years all of Ru Sa's woes had been due to the inauspicious family of Vejiita, and he decided he wanted revenge.

Absurd? Well, yes; he was willing to admit that. Absolutely deserved? Damn straight it was that, too.

And now here he was, on a ship that was damaged (in part) because of Vejiita's son, slightly unstable because of the acumen of Vejiita's daughter, and personally in the grip of a nasty headache because of the mental raging of Vejiita himself; his hatred grew even more.

Vejiita's daughter; Ru Sa allowed himself one brief smile at that thought. That girl, who had not even been born yet in the place where they first learned to jump - that girl, Bra, was going to be a beautiful, if temporary, asset to this group - and in more ways than one.

Even if her behavior thus far had been damned inconvenient.

Chive had been meticulous in her planning; even her newest formula had been duly recorded, and now could successfully be replicated. Chive had always been the most dependable, the most resourceful, of Ru Sa's crew... and Bra had eaten Chive. She had already begun to think like her, of that much Ru Sa was certain. Sheinri-Tsu didn't take very long to adjust to new input.

Wincing slightly as his stomach reminded him of its need for food, Ru Sa gave up on his contemplations and rose instead to go to the mess hall. Kyuujinshu had considerably faster metabolisms than even Saiya-jin did, and if he could not do anything for the present to alleviate his genetic anguish, he certainly could do something about his hunger.

He considered Chive's loss briefly in his mind before going in to dinner. A beautiful woman; a terrible shame. She had been such an asset - and Ru Sa _had_ cared for her, in his own way. He exhaled shortly in something akin to a sigh - or a snort.

Pushing her passing from his mind, he made his way into the mess hall and began to eat. It never occurred to him to wonder how Cumber was going to handle the news.

* * *

It was late in the afternoon, and Dende went for a walk.

One couldn't really blame him; since the destruction of Gero's lab the day before, Bulma had been anything but congenial. She seemed to see Dende as a kind of co-conspirator with her son, and held him partly at fault for the blocking of her explorative tendencies. Funny thing was, his supposed "co-conspirator" was still treating him like some sort of spy - although Dende supposed that if _he_ had caught a strange guest talking to an unknown in the middle of the night, he might be a tad suspicious too. So between the two of them, Dende was ostracized. It would have almost been humorous if it were happening to someone else.

He could _feel_ Trunks following him, driven by whatever dark suspicions and dreams he carried. Using his kami-laden powers, Dende had peeked in on those dreams just once, before going to sleep and being smitten with dreams himself. What he had seen there had been disturbing; some things, such as images of Gohan's death replayed _ad infinitum_ , could of course be expected, but there were other things that made less sense and were too _accurate_ for Dende to rest easily. Dreams of a strange Saiyan-like people bent half on revenge and half on salvation; of a dark cloud-thing that ate as it flowed and left nothing behind; of his mother and father, and fate's strange obsession with them and their offspring.

Dende had pulled out of Trunks' mind when the dream turned sourly to an image of the not-Saiyan's leader raping Bulma. That was just... too much.

Yet when Dende had scanned Trunks' mind at breakfast that morning, none of that was there; it was as if these visions had flowed into his head and out his ear, and left no stain in their passing. At that point Trunks had eyed him suspiciously and Dende had placed his attention elsewhere. No use garnering any more mistrust than there already was.

Dende did not want to admit to himself that he was walking because he wanted to find Cabbage. There was no logical reason for him to be doing what he was doing; from all accounts, Cabbage was among the people who had kidnapped the Namek elders and was possibly wreaking havoc in several timelines at once. Not to mention that if Dende _did_ find him (which was patently impossible), Guardian Trunks would swoop down with his own brand of havoc and Cabbage would never know what hit him. Only a miracle could turn it otherwise.

And yet, Dende kept walking. Cabbage had an aura of fate around him, somehow, and Dende could not shake the feeling that the man had an integral role to play in all this craziness. He sighed. Well, if Fate wanted them to meet today, then Fate would have to arrange it. Dende was not in the business of making miracles.

* * *

Gokuu stood in the darkened hallway and concentrated. He was in the room where the ship had broken off; it had not taken him long to realize that while ki could not be sensed through Junsei Aion, it certainly could be through force fields, so he was now staked out by this one.

This knowledge did no good as far as Goten was concerned; unless the boy happened to be in the corresponding room open to space without the protective iron wall, Gokuu could not sense him. But that was all right; at the moment, Gokuu was more concerned with what he could sense on earth.

The energies; they were all wrong. Chi Chi was there, but not where she should be, and she was weak - weaker than she had been since before Pan was born. Kuririn was in the wrong place as well, and he was so faint as to almost non-existent. Piccolo seemed to be fluctuating in and out just a bit, as though he'd received a great shock, and Yamucha... well, Yamucha was simply not there at all. Neither was Tenshinhan, although Chaou-zu was easy to find. Heck, they all were; except for Kuririn, Chi Chi, and Videl who was with her, everybody was at the Capsule Corporation.

Gokuu was bothered by this very much. Why was everyone - including Mr. Satan - there, while his wife was somewhere in the middle of Satan City? Why was Pan with her grandfather at all? Yes, Gokuu was indeed bothered; so bothered that he spent much of the night monitoring it; and in the process, he experienced a very weird thing.

He felt what was undoubtedly Mr. Satan lead a group - Piccolo, 18, and Chaou-zu - into the depths of Satan City and toward Kuririn - and then all sorts of things had happened at once. Gokuu had felt bizarre, somehow familiar powers; strange and painful exchanges of energy taking place; and then, silence. So to speak. For Gokuu, the strain of following along with all of this proved too much and he had to back out of it for a few minutes.

When he was able to zero back in again, he'd found that all but one of those alien powers were dead; how, he couldn't guess. Everybody else was back at the Capsule Corporation though, and if he hadn't misunderstood...

Gokuu's stretched attention was brought back to that area where whatever battle it was had taken place. There was a second living alien there now, one that seemed to be him to be awfully familiar.

It was Ru Sa.

Even at this distance he knew it, and the fact that the captain had decided to leave his ship when both halves were floating in space and unconnected was more than a little suspect. It, like everything else, bothered Gokuu greatly; but that was nothing compared to what happened next.

He felt Ru Sa go to that scene of battle; felt him meet up with his wounded comrade; and then...

Oh, and then...

Gokuu trembled violently and broke off contact for the second time as Ru Sa attacked and... _consumed_... his own shipmate. Right then, Gokuu knew something for a fact; Shitake's horror at what befell him was not caused by the revelation of Ru Sa's absorbent abilities - it was shock that said abilities should have been turned on _him._ Apparently, sucking on one another was not done in the... whatever-they-were's culture.

Gokuu stepped back and stopped looking. He had already made up his mind that he could not go to earth; to do that, no matter how needed, was to lose his son, and he felt that Chi Chi would not have him do that - even though he was more and more convinced that Goten was already lost. But there was so much going on down there, and for Gokuu, as he thought of his boy and his wife and renewed his to stay yet again, it was hard. It was so very hard.

* * *

**Interlude 18.1: Kaiou Sama**

Bubbles was quite distressed; he liked people, he really did - but there were so many of them on the planet right now that the day's order was disrupted and things simply could not go on as normal. He danced and gibbered, waving handfuls of flowers in the air and attempting to catch his master's attention. Master Kaiou's attention, howver, was presently elsewhere; at the moment, the Kaiou was involved in a heated debate with Kaioushin, Kibito, and Rou Kaioushin. The gathered deities were quite upset; in going to inspect the Black, Kaioushin and Kibito had come too close - and at long last, unfused. Painfully. And to top that weirdness off, Kaiou was shouting.

"No, and for the last time, no!" the Kaiou nearly screamed, his innate respect for his superiors dimmed by the enormity of his argument. "Gokuu _does_ have a chance! He has _more_ than a chance! And I don't care if all the Trunkses in all the different timelines have all disappeared at once, I'm not going to..."

Kaioushin raised one slim hand to stop the outburst; he had heard this set of arguments already three or four times, and did not need to hear it again. One glance at the seething Rou Kaioushin showed _that_ man to be beyond speaking coherently, and so he designated himself as peacemaker.

"Kaiou," he said calmly, speaking in Rou Kaioushin's place. "Do not make this any more difficult than it already is. The original timeline must be found, and we all must remove ourselves to it at once. The fusion is necessary, Kaiou," Kaioushin insisted in his soft voice, cutting off further arguments. "If we do not join with those others of ourselves, then all is lost. All you will have fought for is lost." He looked around, his eyes sad. "Everything will be lost."

Kaiou stammered for a moment and then stopped trying to argue. It was no use; what Kaioushin spoke of seemed horrible to him, truly horrible, but if he was right and there was no hope then it _was_ the only thing to do.

As it turned out, there was one place that the Black could not touch; one universe, apparently the center of all of them, was inviolable, and by its own nature immune to the Black's destructive force: it was the Original Timeline. The difficulty was that this original dimension had split off so many different times and in so many different ways that no one knew where it was; and even finding that timeline would not necessarily make their job any easier. Chances were, when they got there, there would be nothing left anyway. Buu might have eaten everything; or Broli survived and destroyed it all, or Hildegarn be awake and at that very moment stomping his way through the universe. Anything might have happened - and for that matter, anything might _not_ have happened.

One thing was for sure; Kaiou was positive that that dimension's Gokuu would not have bumped his head. That was too good a coincidence to have happened more than once.

Of course, this meant abandoning _this_ reality altogether, consigning it to doom and fleeing for their lives. Once there, they would meet up with whatever deities were left in that realm and fuse - similar, in its way, to Namekian fusion; the two really and truly become one. At the end there would still be one Rou Kaioushin, one Kaioushin, at least four Kaiousamas... etc., etc., and so forth. Of course _they_ should be the ones to go on, to survive; they were gods. It was only how things should be.

Sounded like a great plan; but there was a problem.

Kaiou Sama looked around him at the people he had come to know, at the universe he had come to love - he thought about Gokuu, so brave and true and far away, and the Black, which was at that very moment destroying all there was of the Real in this place.

And he knew that he had no choice.

"Go on," he said suddenly, and Kaioushin looked at him with rare confusion in his eyes.

"What?" he said.

"I said go on," Kaiou Sama repeated, weighing his heart down with his own death sentence. "Leave without me. It may seem like a foolish thing to do - and I'm willing to admit it probably is - but I will not leave here. I will not give up on this place and these people, and I will not give up on the possibility of hope. I can't. I won't. And that's final." Trembling with determination, Kaiou Sama clenched his fists and waited to see what they would do; for of course, if they wanted to make him go, there was nothing he could do to stop them.

Their reaction was surprising.

Kaioushin suddenly threw back his head and laughed. His smooth purple skin caught the light as he reveled, and all the people milling around on the planet stopped to watch.

 _Kami, he's beautiful..._ thought Bulma from the kitchen, watching the goings-on of the deities gathered there with a kind of horrid fascination. Kaioushin laughed, and he was beautiful - and he frightened Bulma very, very much. Whatever it was they were talking about that was serious enough to make the Kaiou yell like that did not, in her mind, deserve such laughing.

Rou Kaioushin grunted, and Kaioushin put a cap on his mirth. "I knew you were going to say that, Kaiou," said Kaioushin, pleased. "And I was counting on you for no less. You are the only one of the Kaious - of anybody - to choose to stay here." His look changed to prideful - and sad. "Except for me." He turned back to Rou Kaioushin with a kind of exultance in his eyes. " _We_ are staying," he said, putting an emphasis on the multiple pronoun. Rou Kaioushin scowled and shook his head.

"Then you are both fools," he said, and with no further discussion he disappeared - he and the three other Kaious and who knew what all else with him. And the only gods left in the universe were Kaiou Sama and Kaioushin.

Bubbles darted past them on the way to the flower gardens (eyeing Kibito nervously as he did so), and Yamucha was right on his tail, whooping and hollering in the sourceless light. Gregory lay further out a-field, shouting encouragements and put downs and making a general nuisance of himself. Gohan sat inside at the kitchen table and Bulma fiddled with appliances; it all seemed so normal and harmless that Kaiou Sama knew he was going to cry.

"Why..." he started to ask, and Kaioushin cut him off.

"You're not the only one who loves this place, Kaiou," he said quietly, and Kaiou Sama knew he was referring to more than just the small planet where the Kaiou made his home. He was also including Gokuu and the earth in his statement, and even more than that; he meant the whole of this "Real." And if there were nothing that could be done and the Black was to take even here - well then, so be it. They would go with it, too.

Kaiou Sama smiled and began to feel a little better. Not being alone always did wonders for the attitude.

"Hey," he quipped, changing the subject with practiced ease. "What did the Buddhist hot dog vendor suggest to his customers?" He grinned with anticipation at his own joke. "One with everything!" And Kaiou Sama went off into gales of laughter, slapping his knee and sending rough guffaws into the sky. And Kaioushin smiled along with him, refusing to give in to the sigh of defeat that lurked near his heart.

Gokuu and the others had to pull through.

Everything depended on them.

* * *

**Interlude 18.2: Cumber**

The floor and walls shook softly as the two parts of ship finally came together again. A bit was missing in the middle, but that didn't matter; it had been designed to come apart in as many pieces as necessary and still fit together as a whole. Scratch one up to the genius of the Kyuujinshuu.

On Ru Sa's part of the ship, Vejiita hung limply in his manacles; someone had grown tired of his constant mental barrage and given him a shot to knock him out, and the prince had yet to wake up.

In the other half of the ship, Cumber stood meditatively in the doorway and watched Gokuu from behind. He was supposed to debilitate him now; _had_ been supposed to do so already before this, and when Ru Sa found out that he had not, the result would surely be Hell broken loose. Cumber did not want that, and so now stood literally with one foot in each decision: he did not want to hurt Gokuu. Not at all. But he did not want to _be_ hurt either, and that was certainly a powerful motivation.

Gokuu surprised him by speaking first.

"You can lock me up now, if that's what you need to do," he said quietly, and Cumber blinked.

"What?" he said. Gokuu turned slowly to face him.

"I said you can lock me up," he repeated, and turned eyes on Cumber that seemed to be made of stone. "I can feel in your ki that you've been deciding whether or not to attack me, and that you don't want to. Well, that's all right. I've thought it through," he said slowly, "and I've come to the conclusion that I probably could. Kill all of you, I mean. Maybe not, and maybe I'd even lose, but I think - at my highest form of Super Saiyan - I could. Even with Ru Sa. But it's not for sure - and, well," he added, and his voice cracked, "there's a chance I... I don't want to risk losing my son."

Cumber did not want to tell Gokuu that he had probably already lost his son; oddly, he felt he did not have to. Some part of Gokuu's unusual juvenile acumen had already picked that up, and that sad knowledge shone on his face.

"Gokuu, your son is probably..."

"Oi, I know," interrupted Gokuu with stricken tone. "You don't have to say it." He turned away for one moment, and then changed the subject. "You're all going home, right? To your own time?" he asked, and Cumber felt his mouth fall open.

"Well... not exactly... it's not our home, but we are going back and... how... did you know that?"

Gokuu shook his head. "I just know," he said. "It doesn't matter how. I don't know why, but... I need to go there with you. There's something there that's... calling to me. I have to go. And," he said with a frightening smile. "If I killed all of you, then how would I ever get there?"

"But... Gokuu," began Cumber, horrified with the realization that he had full intention of talking Gokuu out of giving himself up - that it wasn't worth what they were going to do to him. _Heavens,_ he thought to himself. _Whose side are you **on?**_

"Listen," said Gokuu, patient as though he were the one talking to a child in a man's body. "I want to be rejoined with Vejiita. If we're working together, then we'd have a chance. Although," he paused, and now he looked puzzled. "I don't think the answer is going to come from either of us, exactly. I dunno." Shrugging, he pushed his confusion away and smiled.

Cumber stood looking at this man who didn't know anything, this man who had no idea about the Black, about the Mission, about why he himself was here - but was still filled with a firm conviction as to what he must do.

The Kyuujinshu who went by the name of Cumber sighed wearily.

"All right then," he said, and led the way out and down the hall to the room where he was going to "capture" Gokuu for the time being. He locked the door and left him there.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked of the gods as he walked, and was not really surprised when he did not get an answer.


	19. Trips and Conniptions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things heat up in Future Trunks' world - and a few oddities are explained.

Moot sat deep in the heart of nowhere and happily put together the last remaining bits of the puzzle that comprised the Prophecy. Reep had been right; not all of it fit together; but that was okay. The parts that didn't really didn't matter anyway. He blithely disregarded them and hummed as he finished his work.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, in a place that was still _some_ where, Ru Sa fumed and prepared his crew for take off. They would have to, by necessity, fly back to the "other" timeline and make use of all those Nameks they had stored in the defunct Capsule Corporation; the ingredients required to make their genetically-stabilizing serum were best supplied by Saiyans or Nameks, and as there were only two Saiyans alive at this point, the Nameks were the next best option.

The Kyuujinshu's mission was far from over, and Ru Sa was not pleased with this obligatory detour; since neither he nor his crew knew exactly at what point in time to return to in order to stop Gero from creating the Black (or capturing, or finding - however he had come by it was still unclear), they had to keep going back - and going back - until they could stop him. It seemed endless, and Ru Sa was extremely unhappy. So, he grumbled and frowned as he prepared his crew, hoping that nobody would be inconvenient enough to melt before they could get their hands on the proper chemicals.

And far away from them both, its fingers stretching into more universes than any one had had ever imagined, was the Black. Nothing that was not encased in Junsei Aion survived its passing; nothing, that is, except for lightless, lifeless husks of mass that used to be planets. It did not have purpose or direction - and yet, as Moot worked and Ru Sa fumed, it began to change what was unchangeable - itself.

Ru Sa and the other Kyuujinshu were very inexperienced when it came to traveling through time; truth be told, Bulma had been more adept at developing the system than they had. The problem started when the Kyuujinshu had their ship re-done in Junsei Aion. The stuff was impervious, yes, very handy for your time-traveling would-be heroes - and it also made holes. As they moved through time, it _ripped_ \- and left in the dimensional layers pockets of instability that had not been there before. The Kyuujinshu did not know about this, and no one else had the mind to look - other things, like the Black, took up all observant attention.

The Black began to change as it reached these holes; it, which had existed before time in a repository of chaos - it, which had been reserved for the end and final judgment of those who were _truly_ damned - changed its nature as soon as these smooth rips came into its reach.

Instead of smoothly flowing, it began to pull.

Changing shape into something like a black hole, the Black swirled and continued moving, and now instead of leaving behind empty planets and energy-less mass, it pulled on the fabric of the Real as it went - and tore it even more.

Within minutes after the Black first reached one of these holes, the Reality in which it then crept began to curl in on itself. And within only hours after that, the entire universe twisted and drained into the Black and became no more.

Not even empty planets were left now.

Still the Black continued to flow, unconcerned, uncaring, pulling and tearing all Realities together in its wake. Rou Kaiou-shin had been correct about one thing; the original timeline, whatever that was, would indeed remain untouched. It was moored too soundly in the essence of Reality to be destroyed by this. However, this did not save any timeline that had branched off on its own. Soon, the Black began to turn back on itself, perhaps changing direction by the force of its own suction; it began to work over those places it had already gone, and even the dead planets which had remained behind it were no longer safe.

Not even Reep realized how little time they all had left.

* * *

Dende needed a miracle. He needed to talk to Cabbage, and for that he needed Trunks to go away. Both required, at the least, something very strange to occur.

Meanwhile, some miles away from Western Capital and hidden well from view, the members of Ru Sa's ship went about their duties with no small degree of tension. This was only their second trip back in time to escape from the Black - and their first when on official mission. One thing they knew: they had to hurry, or they would be caught by the Black. They were on the edge of its release already.

As of yet, none of them really knew what they were doing; they had successfully made two jumps, and that in itself was a miracle - the ship was barely holding together as it was, and that was only because the Kyuujinshu themselves were so very brilliant when it came to fixing things. Maintenance was a constant task; a trial worth the effort even of those considered marginally immortal - and Parsley, for one, was getting sick of it.

"There has to be an alternate way," he frowned, and continued his scan of the planet. He paused when his sensors rolled over the Capsule Corporation. "What is this?" he hissed to nobody, and began narrowing the parameters of his search. He leaned forward, toward the screen. "What the hell IS that?" he wondered again, and Ru Sa, walking by the outer door, paused to check.

"What?" he asked calmly. "What have you found?"

Parsley shrugged. "An odd material," he said. "Unmatched by anything in our records. I would give it no notice, but the thing seems to..." he paused. "Captain," he said, turning to Ru Sa, who still stood detachedly in the doorway. "If my scanner is correct - and it is - we have never encountered a more durable material."

Ru Sa sighed, guessing Parsley's mind; after two millennia, he certainly should have been able to. "Durable enough to warrant an entire refitting of this ship?" he asked. "It's fairly strong on its own, you know; Saiyan craftsmanship. Built to take a beating." Ru Sa stepped into the room, looked at the figures on Parsley's screen, and gave a low whistle. "Well, that _is_ some durable stuff, now isn't it?" he commented in a low voice. "Get Chive in here. I want her to take a look at this."

An hour later, a small reconnaissance team was sent out on a mission to the Capsule Corporation. Staying in the ship, monitoring his team via the scouters, Ru Sa pursed his lips bitterly and waited. It somehow seemed only appropriate - however bizarre - that their goal should be located in the home of the sometime consort of the son of the inauspicious king of Vejiita-sei. Fate, apparently, was a comedian. Ru Sa snorted and kept his eye on the monitor. Suddenly he spoke.

"Screw this," he told his team. "I'm coming with you."

* * *

Some distance away, Trunks narrowed his eyes as he saw Dende pause; the Namek knew he was there, certainly, but that was of no concern. Heh; knowledge of his presence might actually make Dende beha...

Trunks suddenly jerked, ki sense startled awake by an extremely brief but powerful flare of power behind him; it was unfamiliar sensation of... someone... something... and it was approaching his home. Without hesitation, he spun around and zoomed back toward the Capsule Corporation, ki trail blazing blue behind him. Dende blinked and turned to watch.

"Now, what spooked him?" he asked of nobody.

"I certainly hope not I," came the answer, and Dende turned again to find Cabbage standing before him. Cabbage looked normal now; that is, he looked like a Saiyan. He smiled, straight teeth pleasant in his pleasant, wise face, and said, "You wanted to talk to me, Dende-san?"

* * *

Bulma was sitting in her kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee, when her hyper-sensitive and extremely powerful son made his entrance. An explosion came from her lab.

Bulma jumped about a foot and nearly spilled her coffee. "What? No! I just perfected it!" Panicking about her newest experiment, she all but threw her mug onto the table and ran out the door, racing toward the lab in the vague hope that she might be able to salvage anything that might be endangered. She stopped half way there, agape at what she saw.

"SHIT!" she cried; one wall was blown out completely - of course, Murphy's Law, the wall by which she had put her latest developments - and there was smoke billowing from every opening.

Trunks emerged from the smoldering doorway like an ancient god.

"Trunks! What did you do?" Bulma shrieked, raising her hands above her head as though to hit him. Trunks smiled coldly - Vejiita without the humor - and Bulma shuddered and immediately fell silent.

"Trespassers, mother," he said politely by way of explanation. "If you will excuse me..." and he flew off toward the east after something which she could not see, his face pulled back in a complete rictus of joyous fury. She stared after him.

"Damnit, that boy doesn't have enough to do," she muttered, and marched in to see what had become of her lab.

* * *

Dende jumped as the explosion from the Capsule Corporation trembled through the ground underneath his feet.

"What was that?" he asked, concerned. Cabbage raised one eyebrow quizzically.

"I don't know," he said. "But I rather suspect I need to be getting back as soon as possible." He looked at Dende. "Was there something in particular you were wishing to discuss?"

Dende stared. "How did you even know I wanted to talk to you?" he asked.

Cabbage shrugged. "The thought was coming from you in waves; being projected, actually. I would have had to be an idiot not to have heard it." He smiled. "Now. I certainly hope that is not the only reason for this rather dangerous meeting, or I fear we may have both wasted our time."

Dende nodded marginally at him. "You're not supposed to be here either," he surmised, and Cabbage nodded.

"That's true," he admitted, turning his head to face the Capsule Corporation. "I would be in no less trouble than you if we were to be discovered here."

Dende tilted his head, puzzled. Cabbage's cool detachment seemed to be catching. "Then why take the risk?" he asked calmly, and Cabbage looked back at him. Dende blinked; the man's eyes had gone completely black.

"Because I do not agree with our present method," he said, leaving Dende to wonder - or perhaps ask - what he was talking about. Dende did not. Aware that time was short, he tried to formulate his question very carefully.

"What can I do to help you?" came out of Dende's mouth before he knew what he was saying.

Cabbage looked at him sharply and began chuckling. "Ai," he said. "You Nameks look so comical when you're surprised." Dende waggled his mouth for a moment; that had _not_ been what he was going to ask. He was beginning to get annoyed at this unexpected and occasional loss of control over his speaking facilities.

Cabbage looked thoughtful. "It has been some centuries since someone has offered a favor so openly to the likes of _me_ ," he mused. "I'll tell you what you can do. I need information. The man who is my source of study is already dead in your world, which makes things harder; however, I think you still may be able to help me. What do you know of Dr. Gero?"

Dende took a deep breath and held it for a long moment. "I know much about him," he said, calmly, responding once again to Cabbage's cool nature. "Probably considerably more than you need and all superfluous. What information do you want specifically?"

Cabbage looked at him steadily; his eyes were now as normal as any Saiyan's. "Information on the Black," he said, and Dende could not repress a nervous swallow. Cabbage raised that eyebrow again. "You know of the Black?" he said. Dende nodded. Cabbage pursed his lips. "What I need is very specific, and quite simple - although not so easily obtained. I need to learn the exact date at which Gero caught or created the Black and imprisoned it in his lab the Deeper."

Dende's eyes went wide. "You mean it's down THERE? Right now?"

Cabbage nodded. "Yes. But we're not sure where, and we're not sure how it got there. We only know what we saw - the Black shooting up out of the ground like a volcanic dust cloud, settling on everything within a seven mile radius and reducing it to nothing." Cabbage remained cool; his tone did not indicate anything approaching fear or even panic - and yet, there was something in his eyes that cried out at the horrific nature of it all, at the _wrongness_ of it, the injustice.

Dende thought he could sympathize. "I will learn what I can," he said. "There is a book..."

Cabbage snorted. "Good luck with that. We couldn't find anything useful in it. Although," he admitted, "by the time we got our hands on it - our past, your future - some of the pages had already been torn out. There is some chance..." his voice trailed off, and he looked toward the Capsule Corporation again. "Your friend is coming back," he said, and with no further ado, shrank into some small creature and skittered away.

Dende did not watch him go. It seemed... rude.

Moments later, Trunks arrived. He looked around, almost furious. "Who else was here, Dende?" he demanded. "I felt another presence here."

"You did," Dende admitted, and sighed. "I don't know who or what he was. He looked Saiyan. That's all I know."

Trunks did not look entirely convinced. "I think you had better come with me," he said, and Dende had an insane urge to stick out his hands and say, _Cuff me, copper, but you'll never take me alive._ He restrained himself, and instead demurely nodded.

"I couldn't agree more, Trunks," he said. "It's a long way back to the Capsule Corporation, and I've had enough weirdness for today. In fact," he said, filled with yet another sourceless but solid idea, "I think it would be a good idea for me not to go anywhere for a while. Too many strange things about."

Trunks looked at him with a completely unreadable expression. "Yes," he said, and picked up Dende around the waist and flew him home.

Hanging like a sack of wheat from Trunks' hip, Dende took the opportunity to look around. To the west: Satan City, beginning to take on grand shape again as its few survivors struggled to rebuild it. To the north was Capsule Corporation and its bastion of hope for all still living - the generous genius Bulma, and her savior son Trunks. And to the east... Dende looked at the great, granite mountains so innocently resting over doom incarnate, and shuddered. Trunks felt this and looked down at him curiously, but Dende's eyes were by then elsewhere.

Trunks sighed and relented just a bit. He did not enjoy being harsh; it was, in fact, not at all in his nature to be so. But the earth and the human population in particular was in very bad shape, and he could not allow anything - anything at all - to get in the way of his duties toward either one. Dende here might be the cause of some trouble. He also might not; but it was not worth taking the chance.

Longing for the briefest of moments for a peace that he had only glimpsed twice in his life, Trunks set down at the Capsule Corporation and stood Dende up on the lawn. Bulma came storming out of the house to greet them.

"THERE you are!" she yelled, her former reticence dropped like an old towel. "You had BETTER have a DAMNED good explanation for what you did in there today!"

"Mother, I..."

"Don't you start with me! You could have ruined everything! _Everything!!!_ I had only _just_ perfected my Junsei Aion, for the _first_ time since it's invention over a decade ago it's working right, and then _you_ have to go in there and..."

Of course, being Bulma, she went on for a while. Trunks just stood there, his expression making it impossible to tell if he were absorbing this to heart or just listening to give her the respect due his mother. Dende stood beside him in silent shock and trembled.

The Junsei Aion.

She had completed the Junsei Aion.

Dende clenched his jaw and wondered just how much time they all had left.

* * *

**Interlude 19.1: Bulma and Ru Sa**

Bulma marched back into her lab, her fists clenched and her teeth grinding in fury. Trunks had blown half her lab out - she didn't CARE that somebody had been in there, he could have at least led them outside first.

And although she'd already checked four times, she had to go look again; her precious notes were still all right, and her sample had not been destroyed - heh. Not that anything at this point COULD destroy it.

She had done it; she had perfected her Junsei Aion. It had taken her almost ten years and endless hours of toil, but she had done it. She had created the most durable substance in the universe.

The final step was easy, really; so simple she might have missed it - if not for Dr. Gero's strange glass. Flexible. She had failed to make it flexible. The problem with Gero's glass - as powerful as it was - was that it was _brittle._ It broke. Ah, but not Junsei Aion. She had figured out that there was a problem with it when she could not successfully make the time capsule for Trunks; now, however, her troubles were at an end. A tiny bit of adjustment in the atomic structure and voila! Instant Junsei Aion.

From the back of the lab, Ru Sa watched her with great interest. He was in the form of a rat right now; not the most dignified of creatures, but small - and fortunately below the Great Guardian's notice. Trunks had gone chasing the others out the door, and Ru Sa had immediately and instinctively changed forms and hid; now, he was very glad indeed that he had done so.

Bulma hummed happily to herself and made backup copies of her notes; no use taking any more chances. Tomorrow she would go to the city council with her discovery and see if they could do anything with it - and, perhaps, give her a bit of the recognition she'd always craved and somehow missed.

She left the room and shut the door, locking it behind her; Ru Sa was about to do some of his own investigation when the door knob rattled, clicked, and turned. He was surprised to see the young Namek Dende walk into the room.

Dende went straight to the cabinet where Bulma had been working and began to rummage. "Where is it..." he muttered to himself, and eventually pulled out a large, leather-bound book. Ru Sa stared; he recognized it as the book belonging to Gero, the one that the Kyuujinshu had stolen before the end and studied for any indication of when the mad scientist had come upon the Black. It had been interesting reading, but fairly worthless for all of that. Yet here was Dende, going out of his way to investigate and fearlessly risking Trunks' ire to do so

Ru Sa was struck with a sudden, insane urge to rush forward (obviously changing out of rat-form as he did so), kill the Namek, and take the book. Of course, that behavior would make no sense - so, he didn't do it. Ru Sa was many things, but foolish was rarely one of them.

Dende leafed delicately through the book as though he did not want to touch it; but whatever it was he wanted, he did not find. Disappointed and muttering, he put the book back and left the room, carefully re-locking the door behind him. With perfect timing Trunks flew by outside the door, threatened Dende about something or other, picked the Namek up unceremoniously, and dumped him in the house.

Apparently, yon Guardian was not in a good mood today.

Taking his chance, Ru Sa slipped outside through an air vent and headed back the way he had come, waiting to regain his own form until he was some miles from the Capsule Corporation. Naturally, he was not in the best of moods either when he finally got back to base.

That night, Dende went to bed hoping beyond hope that somehow he could find the answer to the question Cabbage had brought to mind: when did the Black first appear? When did Gero make his horrible discovery? And what on earth possessed the man to put it in that fragile ki-proof glass to begin with?

All were questions that needed answering, and Dende did not know where to look. Determining to get a better glimpse of Gero's book in the morning, he went to bed, trying to ignore the sensation of Trunks on sentry duty outside his room for most of the night. He desperately hoped that he would not be forced to explore what was left of the Deeper on his own.

And Bulma slept without concern, trusting her son to protect her, trusting her own genius to solve whatever problems might arise, and trusting the world to be there and be sane for her to function in the days to come. She had no idea how very wrong she was.


	20. Dende, the Trials, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Past Ru Sa makes an appearance in Future Satan City, and explosions naturally follow.
> 
> It makes sense in context.

Dende was the kind of calm-natured person who accepted things as they were, even if they were bizarre. This, naturally, stood him in good stead with his present situation.

"You would like to do _what_ to my ears?" he asked in disbelief.

"Well, it's just an experiment after all, and I've never tested it or anything, but I've been thinking about it for years and it seems to me that with only the slightest bit of orientation I should be able to..."

"I repeat... you want to do _what_ to my ears?" Dende interrupted. "Laymen's tongue, please; I may have taken some small interest in the sciences of microbiology and sonar technology during my stay on earth, but I am afraid that your theorizing has gone beyond my limited knowledge." _And sounds particularly painful,_ he thought of adding, but didn't bother. This was the first time Bulma had spoken civilly to him in days.

"Well, it's pretty simple, actually," she explained with some excitement. "Namek's ears are really sensitive - right? So I figured out that your ear canal is actually three times greater in capacity than that of a normal human. Put that together with some technology, and bang! Radar attached to your head!"

"Um," he said.

"Oh, but it'll be great!" she announced, throwing her arms up in the air. "You'll be like a Super Namek! Wherever a crime is being committed, you are there! That would be great... especially if you were working with Trunks, or something."

"Um," he said again, and Bulma's arms fell to her sides.

"You don't want to do it," she said.

"Not really," he admitted.

She looked vaguely disappointed.

Dende opened his mouth as if to explain, but then didn't bother. This Bulma was used to disappointment, both large and small.

"Fine," she sighed. "I guess it will have to remain a theory, then." Shrugging impassively, she left him and went back to her lab.

Dende had absolutely nothing to add to this conversation, so he turned back on it and went inside of the house. Trunks had forbidden him to leave the grounds for any reason, unless accompanied by himself. Well, that was all right. It's not like there was anything to do in the ruined mess of Satan City. Sighing, he decided to get a drink of water; Dende, for one, would never take the ability to just "get" water for granted again.

Mr. Satan was in the kitchen, watching, when Dende came in and dejectedly trotted to the sink.

Mr. Satan's eyes were sharp, and he did not miss much; in general these days he opted not to get too involved - crippled as he was, Mr. Satan felt, honestly, more like a handicap than a help. This time, however....

"What are you looking for, Dende?" he asked, and Dende turned to him with surprise.

"What?" he asked.

"I said, what are you looking for? It seems to me I see you every day - sneaking around, even, sometimes - looking secretly for something that you really _need_ to find... and you can't seem to find it."

Dende cautiously met his gaze; he was not sure what had prompted this line of questioning. "I don't know what you're referring to."

"I think you do," Mr. Satan replied, and smiled heroically.

 _Heh,_ Dende thought and briefly smiled back. _Only Mr. Satan could pull off a look like that in a wheelchair._

"If I were," he said aloud, "why would that matter to you?"

Mr. Satan grinned. "Because I would like to help you find it," he said, and Dende's mouth fell open.

"What?" he managed.

"I would like to help you," Mr. Satan repeated more slowly, as though aware the comprehensive capacity of his audience had just crashed. "I want to help you find what you are looking for," and his expression was so heroic that for a moment, Dende believed him.

"But... why would you... Trunks...."

"Is a good boy, but over-zealous at times," Mr. Satan finished gently. "This would be one of those times. It's obvious even to an old cripple like me that whatever burden you carry on your shoulders, it's heavier than any fear you might rightfully have of Bulma's only son."

Okay, was this a test? Was Dende supposed to come out clean and innocently ignorant? Would Trunks descend on him in a blaze of righteous fury if he said the wrong thing?

Oddly enough, Dende found that he did not care either way. Perhaps he wasn't getting enough sleep.

"Sure," he said. "I would love your help, although I don't really see how you _could_ help me."

"In a way most sought after and rarely obtained," Mr. Satan intoned. "I can be eyes and ears for you where you cannot be. You may not have noticed," he said with a wry look, "but I am in a wheelchair. Although I am not a quiet person, for some reason that fact makes others believe I am deaf."

Dende blinked.

"You would never believe the conversations people have had right in front of my face," he said. "Of course, I don't tell. However," he announced, and Dende sincerely hoped that his booming voice would not carry _too_ far within the complex. "I would be willing to put those dubious skills to good use for you. What do you need to know?"

"I need to know when Dr. Gero completed his renovations on the underground laboratory that came to be know as The Deeper," Dende said, and look for a reaction.

Mr. Satan smiled.

"I have no idea if I can help," he said, and Dende's heart fell just the tiniest bit. "But I will see what I can do. Bee here, he's a good little spy, he is. Gets the greatest conversations going - don't you, baby?"

As if with complete understanding, Bee immediately yipped a response.

 _That dog understands more than some humans around here,_ Dende thought to himself, and then caught Mr. Satan's look.

"I won't do anything that will bring harm to this good woman or her son," Mr. Satan said, and there was real menace in his tone. "They may be a little strange, but this world and this man owe more to those two people than any favor you could ever call in. Is that clear?"

Dende nodded. The world needed more heroes like Mr. Satan. "Yes, Satan-san," he said with the utmost respect.

Mr. Satan nodded once; his eyes were very keen. "All right, I believe you," he said. "Go about your business. We never had this conversation." And, bizarrely, he turned and winked at Bee.

Bee barked twice.

Dende could not shake the feeling that a very important covenant had just been signed.

* * *

Trunks came in for dinner on time as usual. Which was pointless, as no dinner was there. The moment he stepped into the room, everyone stopped talking and looked at him guiltily.

"Where's mother?" he asked of the forlorn group sitting around the empty tabletop.

"She's gone shopping, Trunks," answered Roshi, hesitating just a second too long. "She said she'd be home in time to program the robots for dinner - or worse, cook it herself. But she's not here yet, so we all have to wait." He held Trunks' gaze steadily.

Trunks looked back at him. "Where did she go?" he inquired politely.

"Shopping, I said," Roshi began to reiterate, and Trunks held up one hand to stop him. Roshi stopped.

"I said, where did she go?" Trunks said in a quiet voice. "I did not ask what she was doing or with whom she went. It is late, after dark, and I would like to know what has become of my mother, who for some unknown has abandoned the schedule that she has rigorously kept for eight years - supposedly in favor of some 'shopping.' Now," he said, looking around. "Where did she go?"

Everybody shrugged.

Trunks sighed and closed his eyes in thought for one moment. She was not in her lab, he knew that; the lights were off. There was nothing to do in Satan City, no new love interest, and they had all the groceries they needed. So where...

He bared his teeth as an idea occurred to him. "She better NOT have," he said menacingly, and took off out the door.

* * *

Bulma loaded one more bag into the arms of her latest assistant - interesting fellow, and pretty brave to come with her all the way out here - and began to lead the way back to her jeep. Heavens, it was already dark; she was going to catch it, that much was sure. Trunks was not his father, and for that, Bulma was perversely grateful; however, when he had come back to this time from spending a year in the Room of Spirit and Time with said father, he had been different - and he had made and insisted on keeping several very strict regulations. One of them had been a tight schedule after dark. The lack of a police force or army after the androids had finished with them made this only common sense; there were a lot of gangs now, and a woman could get into a lot of trouble out on her own.

But this - what she had in her precious sacks right now - was more important than whatever deep-seated need Trunks had for control. It was more important, in fact, than anything else Bulma could think of.

From what she could understand, she now held the secret of creating life itself.

Bulma felt an insane urge to giggle wildly and leap like a goat down the mountain to her jeep; power like unto a god's had been given her, and she felt more than giddy with its content. To create _life..._

In the end, though, she sedately kept her pace and made down it to her jeep with nary a slip. Her assistant - Akeno something-or-other, his name was - did the same. Within minutes they had the thing loaded and were heading back to the Capsule Corporation. She had been lucky, really; to think that Trunks brought the whole cavern down, and yet what she needed had been buried only under a few feet of earth; it was almost like it had been laid out to wait for her, ready to be taken.

Smiling happily, she drove back to her lab, eager for the dawn and the chance to explore fully Gero's last gifts to the world.

* * *

Trunks was half way out the door when Bee started to freak. Snarling and barking furiously, the little dog raced past him and toward the lab, making enough noise to wake half of Satan City.

An intruder? After the events of a few days before, Trunks was willing to bet that was just what it was. He followed.

He was three feet from the door when he felt something wrong. A ki; strange, unfamiliar, menacing. Dangerous. Powering up, he took one more step and reached for the knob. The door swung open before he even touched it.

Standing in the doorway was a large male character, Saiyan-esque in stature but definitely not Saiyan by blood. Trunks tensed.

"Hello, Vejiita's son," the man said, and then they began to fight.

* * *

Bulma was just turning into the long drive that led to her home when her son and his attacker's fireworks lit up the night sky. Sounds of ki and cries of battle reached her even here, and Bulma's heart clenched more than just a little.

"Trunks," she said, and sped up as much as she dared; the road here still wasn't fixed yet from the destructive growth of the vines.

* * *

Ru Sa was impressed; no, he was more than impressed. In fact, it might be fair to say that he was downright flabbergasted. Vejiita's son was incredible; the perfect fighter.

And Ru Sa was losing.

Trunks snarled like a mad dog and threw another ki attack, one which Ru Sa managed to avoid only by re-organizing his already shaky genetic structure and funneling the shot back toward him. Trunks easily blocked and kept coming.

Ru Sa snarled and fell back a bit more, looking for an opening - he only needed one; one chance to shape shift, and he would be away, out of sight and out of mind. He had information to bring to his people - it was essential he escape.

However, the son of Vejiita was turning out to be a much more difficult target than any Saiyan or half-Saiyan Ru Sa had ever had the pleasure of combating. He silently cursed the damned dog that had tipped off his presence, then cursed himself for allowing his presence to be picked up at all. He was getting sloppy. That's all there was to it.

Trunks hauled off and hit him in the stomach, very hard; Ru Sa went flying backwards, noting Bee's body in passing, which was unmoving and losing its warmth in the growing night. He still wasn't even sure which one of them had kicked him; in the end, it hardly mattered..

Just then, Bulma's jeep came roaring up the driveway, headlights blazing, and Trunks looked away for half a second -

\- and the intruder was gone. Vanished. Poof. Not a sign of him, neither hide nor hair nor trail of ki. Trunks slowly flew back to the ground, gritting his teeth and panting with silent fury.

Bulma got out and ran toward him - very nearly stepping on the presently insectoid Captain, did she but know it.

"Trunks!" she shouted, seeing no one around but him and feeling absurdly relieved. "What were you doing? I told you not to..."

"And _**I**_ told _**you**_ to not be out after dark! A rule has been broken! You did not have the right to break the pattern like that! You could have been killed!"

Bulma stopped short in the face of this, shock and a twinge of fear overcoming her frustration. Trunks did not yell. He never raised his voice except in a fight. The fact that he was doing so now - and at _her_ \- indicated a more agitated frame of mind than she had yet seen in her son, and she did not like it at all.

And as suddenly as he had exploded, Trunks was calmed.

"Mother," he said, normal tones soothing. "You know better than to be out after dark anyway. We had an intruder - somebody powerful - and he just... _vanished._ Do you know what he could have done to you with a power like that? This is dangerous - do not ever, ever do this again. Please."

Bulma blinked. "But I wasn't alone," she protested, her shaky voice sounding weak in her ears. "Akeno Cabbage was with me, and..."

"I don't care who was with you or not," he said, so quietly that she almost did not hear him. "A rule has been broken, and I would appreciate it if it did not happen again. Do I make myself clear?"

Bulma looked into her son's clear, cold, blue eyes and had no answer. Instead, she changed the subject. "Bee," she said, pointing at the dog's motionless form.

"The trespasser kicked him," Trunks said evenly. "There was nothing I could do."

Bulma's hands flew to her mouth. "Oh, no...." she said. "Mr. Satan..."

Dende picked that exact moment to come out of the house.

"What is going on out here?" he asked - and spotted Bee. Without a word, he ran lightly to the dog and knelt over him.

He glowed.

Bee twitched. He wriggled; he barked, and moments later, Bee was happily licking at Dende's fingers, wagging his tail so hard he was nearly knocking himself over.

Bulma began to cry in gratitude.

Trunks watched this impassively, not knowing how to respond and wishing he knew more. How much or how little Dende had had to do with the visitor tonight was uncertain, but all these strange people appearing and disappearing on his watch was beginning to get under his skin. The next person to arrive out of nowhere, he wryly decided, was going to get blasted, no questions asked.

Roshi, Oolong, and Mr. Satan now came out, having also heard the shouts and ki but not being as quick on their feet - relatively speaking - as Dende. Mr. Satan looked at his dog and then at the Namek. He knew. Somehow, he knew.

Mr. Satan said nothing, and nothing needed to be said. Dende had strengthened their bond and agreement beyond words, and as such, words would only be wasteful.

"Everybody inside," Trunks said quietly, "including your guest, mother," and Dende turned to see Cabbage - in human form, but Cabbage nonetheless - climb out of Bulma's jeep.

"I certainly hope this is not a bad time," he said, and Dende fainted.

* * *

**Interlude 20.1: Gohan**

Hana was a nurse; she had been a nurse for all of 30 years, and she could safely say that she had rarely seen a patient more loved than Son Chi Chi.

The woman had visitors of one... kind... or another in at all available hours of day or night - and some that were not available. She was personally very glad that _she_ had not been the one forced to turn that tall green fellow with the pointed ears away from the door, so-sorry-but-visiting-hours-are-as-follows.

Hana peeked in the room briefly right now, knocking quietly on the door to remind the young woman - Mr. Satan's daughter, of all things - that it was time for her to leave. Videl nodded solemnly and rose to go. Hana stopped her on the way out.

"You are very kind to Mrs. Son, young woman," she said by way of compliment. "Your ancestors would be proud."

Videl smiled sadly and left without a word. Ah, Hana thought - she was too young to have to bear the burden of a dying friend.

Hana peeked back in the room on her way back to the desk and gave a start - but of course when she looked back, the young man she thought had seen in there was gone. How confusing; he had looked a little like the picture Son Chi Chi kept next to her bed, that of a strapping young man graduating with honors from college.

Heh; Hana needed a break, that was all. She was hallucinating family members now - what next? And Hana marched back down the hall, not giving another thought to the man she had seen in Chi Chi's room.

Gohan stood by his mother's bed, unmoving. Tears were glistening on his cheeks. His mother lay dying, unaware even of his presence... and he could not touch her. He could _not._

Newly rejuvenated tail curling sadly down by his heels, Gohan stood and contemplated his mother's features, this woman who had influenced his life so strongly, this woman who had married and cared for his father, this woman whose face showed lines of pain as well as age - and he found he could not take any more.

"Kaiou sama, please, I've had enough," he said, and vanished.

Chi Chi stirred; without opening her eyes, she moved her hands like small, weak birds to the side of the bed where Gohan had been standing.

"Gohan..." she said. And silently, she wept. "Gokuu... please, come home to me..."

* * *

Dende woke up long after dinner and found Bee on his chest, panting contentedly into his face.

"Bee," he said, and the dog slurped him right on the nose. Sounding uncannily like Moot, Dende giggled and sat up.

"There you are," said Cabbage, and Dende's heart jumped into his throat.

"What are you doing here?" he asked without thinking, and saw only the briefest of warnings in Cabbage's eyes before Trunks spoke from somewhere behind him.

"What do you mean, what is he doing here? Have you seen him before?"

"Have I seen _who_ before?" Dende asked, allowing his genuine puzzlement to come out on his face. Trunks scowled - as good a scowl as any Vejiita had ever worn - and started to ask something else. Then Bulma was there, Bulma with a grateful face and a glass of water, and she hushed Trunks before any more suspicion could be laid.

"Drink," she ordered, and Dende did. "You used too much energy on Bee - I'm nearly sure of that. Just rest now. You'll be all right." She glared at Trunks. "Thanks to Akeno," she said, and she turned and beamed at Cabbage, who smiled admiringly back at her.

 _What the HELL is going on..._ Dende thought, and then Bee barked to get everybody's attention.

"Is anybody going to bed in this house, or am I getting to sleep alone?" Mr. Satan boomed from the other end of the building. "Bee... come!" and the dog bounded from the room and ran after him.

Bulma smiled wearily. "He's right," she said. "It's close to midnight now; you were out for a while, Dende-san." She smiled and kissed him on the head. "Thank you for helping the dog," she added, and rose to go. Then with no preamble, "Akeno, it's very late - you should spend the night."

Trunks immediately stiffened, but if Cabbage saw, he gave no notice.

"Oh, Ms. Briefs," he said, allowing the barest hint of infatuation into his tone. "I couldn't - such an inconvenience..."

"Bullshit," she said cheerfully, and walked out of the room. "We have more than enough bedrooms," her voice floated down the hallway. "Get Trunks to lead you to one." And then she was gone.

Trunks, Dende, and Cabbage looked at one another with some discomfort, their peace-making link having abandoned them all for the arms of Morpheus.

"There are spare bedrooms in the west wing," Trunks muttered, and Cabbage - Akeno - smiled gratefully.

"Your mother is a very special woman," he said. "I am glad to see you take such care in protecting her."

"Where did you go today?" Trunks asked suddenly, turning his cool and powerful gaze fully on his guest.

Cabbage did not hesitate.

"We went searching for supplies on the outskirts of Satan City," he said. "Found an old, crushed hardware store - I'm not sure what all she took, but she labeled it "salvage" and threw it in the Jeep."

Trunks relaxed marginally. "Oh," he said, and then as if to himself, "nowhere near the lab, then."

"Pardon?" Akeno Cabbage, the epitome of puzzlement.

"Never mind," Trunks said, relaxing more. "Give me a moment to put sheets on your bed," and he left. Dende stared in disbelief at Cabbage.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?" he demanded in a fierce whisper once Trunks had gone upstairs.

"What do you think, Namek?" asked Cabbage, showing his perfect teeth in a smile.

Dende shook his head. "I don't understand a damned..."

"Your bed is ready," said Trunks from the doorway, and Dende jumped. He did not at all like the amused, cruel smile that young man turned in his direction.

"Tense, Dende-san?" Trunks wondered aloud, and Dende sighed.

"I need sleep," he trusted himself to say, and then shut his mouth. He was too close to blurting something angry that he would regret.

"This way, Cabbage-san," Trunks said, and left Dende to get to his own room before the downstairs radar sensors switched on for the night.

Dende lost no time in getting to bed. His head hurt, his back ached, and the slight disorientation from his fall had not yet gone away. His last thought as he drifted off to sleep lay in the direction of Cabbage's lie; wherever he and Bulma had gone tonight, it had not been the city. Roshi and Oolong knew, and probably Mr. Satan; those former two had been scared bloodless by Trunks' questioning at dinner. Trunks' words then returned to his mind: _...nowhere near the lab, then,_ and Dende felt sudden cold threads of fear.

The lab? _Gero's_ lab? Would she have gone? Would she have dared?

Yes, and yes. Both Bulmas he knew would have done that.

So where did that leave him? Dende knew; yet another secretive trip to her lab, hopefully undetected by either Briefs and possibly aided by Mr. Satan or Cabbage. He felt like a spy.

Dende drifted into sleep lulled by his plans for tomorrow, already accustomed enough to Trunks' presence to be able to ignore his keen flight past the window. Tomorrow, at least, would have to take care of itself.

* * *

Dende fell into the pit of his dreams as easily as a practiced cliff diver. Within moments, he was no longer on earth, but on a strange ship - and in front of him was Vejiita.

"Must find the key," came Reep's voice from nowhere, and Dende paused to listen. It sounded odd, somehow, doubled; but he did not stop to ponder it.

"See the Prince before you, battered in sleep; his must be the breaking in twain." Suddenly Vejiita morphed into Trunks - the other Trunks, not Mirai - sleeping bathed in a miraculous golden white light and looking so beautiful that Dende's heart ached.

"His son must be the joining of same. The Death of one means waking of him - the one who sleeps and wears his name." The two men, in vastly different circumstances but somehow heading toward the same goal, floated before him.

"The truth will be painful, Dende," said Reep sadly, "but we are running out of time." Both men then faded from his view to be replaced by... nothing. Nothing at all. It was the Black - he was seeing it again, from deep in the heart of it, and yet something about it was different.

"The truth will hurt, Dende-sama," Reep repeated sadly, letting Dende take in what he saw. "But once given, it cannot be retracted. The truth," and then Bulma's face floated before him along with that of a man he had never seen before except in Trunks' dream: Ru Sa. "Truth," said Reep one more time, and the visions faded away.

"But what about Gokuu?" asked Dende of the nothingness, and - wonder of wonders - got a response.

"Love is his snare," warned Reep. "And it will be his end." And then, Reep was gone for real.

Dende woke up, gasping for breath, trying to hang on to what he had seen, trying to make sense of it. There was something that bothered him... something that did not lay in sync with what he had seen before.

The Black. The Black was different. The area where it had been no longer contained strange, ash-colored masses of matter that used to be the cores of planets. Now, it contained nothing at all.

Was it getting worse? The Black was... increasing? Eating itself? Dende did not know.

He finally fell asleep again that night sometime around 2:00 AM. He knew that because it was Trunks' sixth time past his window, and the boy passed by approximately every twenty minutes. Yay for the wonders of regularity.

This time, when Dende slept, he did not dream; and he was grateful, at least, for that.


	21. Transformations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ghosts have cars. Apparently.

Trunks woke up feeling dazed and with more than a tad stiff - in fact, rather like he'd taken a pummeling and then gone without oxygen for a little while. He sat up.

His hair, longer now for the time he had spent with Jouten, spilled across his shoulders and partly down his back, its already rapid growth accelerated by the very presence of the company he had been keeping. He smiled, at peace, with himself, the world, with everything.

...even though nothing very pretty was going to happen next.

Somewhat shakily, Trunks got to his feet and looked around. As promised, he had been returned to the room from which he had been sucked out - fortunately for him, now sealed off. Well, of course; Jouten would not put him in a losing situation. Jouten was not like that.

Keeping his own ki low and opening his ki sense wide, Trunks walked sedately to the door and peeked out. His father and Gokuu were out there somewhere, Bra most likely with them, and he had to find them all as soon as possible. Them... and a man who called himself Cumber.

Glancing over and wishing briefly that he'd been given permission to mess with their machinery, he slipped out into the hallway, clothing ragged beyond belief, his face clear and pure as an angel's, and exuding death with every calm and solid step.

* * *

Cumber walked morosely down the hallway of his ship and went about preparing himself for takeoff. This still seemed to him to be more than stupid; it seemed to be a waste of time. To go all the way back to that dead place where the Black had started and pick up a bunch of Nameks when there were _plenty_ of things to be had right _here_ made no sense to him. Ru Sa had insisted that taking any more creatures from this dimension would be too dangerous; telepathic help cries from Nameks and interfering Kaious, he'd said. But they were going to go _back in time,_ which meant that the incident would not have _happened_ yet, and telepathic Nameks would hardly be a problem anyway; it's called _drugs_. Knock them out and there would _be_ no problem.

Sighing, he turned the corner and froze in shock as he saw Vejiita's son - looking a little different, but very much alive - stepping out of a control room and heading down the hallway. If the boy was aware of him, he gave no sign, and for a good long moment, Cumber stood in complete indecision of what to do.

Option one: go and check in the room to see if the brat damaged any machinery.

Option two: go after said brat and debilitate him before he could do any _more_ damage to any machinery.

Option three:

Cumber never got to flesh out what option three was, because at that exact moment Trunks turned around.

"Hello, Cumber," he said, and his eyes were like torches. "I was just looking for you."

Cumber knew quite well at that point that option three was to turn around and run away as fast as he could. He also knew instinctively that it would be pointless. Whatever power was emanating from that boy could not be outrun.

Afraid of something he could not understand or plainly see, Cumber stood still and waited for the drastically altered Trunks to come for him.

* * *

At the end of Snake Way, Kaiou-sama suddenly gasped and knocked over the table on which he had been playing chess with Kibito. "He's back?" he said to no one, testing the words on his lips. "He's BACK!! HE'S BACK!! HAHAHA!!" And the blue Kaiou proceeded to jump up from his seat and do a gig around the overturned table. It seemed there was hope for the universe after all.

* * *

**Interlude 21.1: Coincidence or Conspiracy?**

As Trunks approached Cumber and Kaiou-sama danced like an idiot, several other things were happening on different parts of the vessel all at once.

One was that almost everybody on board the ship was taking a nap. It made sense on one level that they would be taking a nap; they had been working very hard to get the time-jump engines online, and the lack of Chive's stabilizing serum made everyone very tired indeed.

However, Parsley was sleeping with them, and Parsley was supposed to be on duty. His sleep in particular meant that for at least thirty minutes Trunks and company roamed the ship unhampered, unmarked - and without Ru Sa's knowledge.

The second thing was that Bra came fully awake the moment her brother set foot in the vessel. Wide-eyed and open mouthed, she very nearly gave into her exuberantly juvenile urge to scream, _TRUNKS!_ at the top of her lungs - but she did not. Bra, you see, had been learning patience. Whatever else Chive may have been, she was a master at the fine art of subtlety.

So instead, Bra did something else.

Clenching her teeth and steeling her little mind, Bra began trying to reach her drug-dazed father, trying to break through the fog and wake him up, get him ready, make him alert. A very nagging feeling of imminent departure had settled heavily on her shoulders.

And so, while Ru Sa stood in the control room at the other end of the ship, gazing at the stars, his captives were wreaking havoc with his crew and plans. By the time he found out about it, the damage was far too advanced for him to fix.

* * *

Gokuu could hear Cumber panicking out in the hallway.

"But... but no, you're dead, you're...."

"Shhh," hushed Trunks, and amazingly, Cumber did. "I have not come to kill you," he said quietly, and Cumber blinked.

"Hey," shouted Gokuu. "Hey, what's going on out there?"

"Would you please let Gokuu out of that store room, Cumber?" asked Trunks politely. "I'm afraid I have to insist on it."

Cumber at that point came to the conclusion that he was going insane. "Why... why should I?" he challenged, figuring if he'd gone mad enough to be seeing dead people, then talking to them certainly would make little difference at this point in the game.

"Because it's the right thing to do, and you know it," answered Trunks. "What you're doing now is not working, it's not helping to stop the Black, and it's costing innocent lives in the process. You have to do what you know is right." Trunks moved closer and lowered his tone again. "You have a chance to fix things, Cumber. To make it right before you die. Not many get that chance. It has been given to you. Do not be a fool and throw it away." Trunks took one more step, and Cumber could _feel_ the holy power coming off him. No, not _off_ him - _through_ him.

Trunks had become a direct channel for Jouten.

Cumber found himself bowing. "Yes, sir," he said, looking curiously at the boy. "Right away." And without letting himself think too hard about his decision, he went and opened Gokuu's door.

* * *

Vejiita was barely stirring when Trunks began to loosen his chains.

"Papa," he said gently, and Vejiita looked up at him through fogged and unfocused eyes.

"Trunks?" he asked in disbelief. Bra's earlier words about his son not being dead but "not there, either" came to mind. They didn't clarify anything, but their validity was certainly confirmed. "Where in hell have you been?" he said - or tried to say; it came out a bit too croaked and slurry for even the enhanced Trunks to completely understand him.

"With Jouten," he said, chafing his father's torn wrists. "If you said what I think you said. He has been making me pure so that I may use the eighth dragon ball."

"Been with God? Eighth dragon ball? What?" Vejiita was unsure now if this were really happening or if he were hallucinating again. The drugs _had_ been pretty powerful. "What in hell are you yammering about?"

"I think he's feeling better," observed Bra, and Vejiita was about to reply when Gokuu's face swooped down and encompassed his vision.

"Ohayoo!" he intoned cheerfully, and drugged or not, Vejiita tried to smash him.

"Whoa, papa, whoa," said Trunks, chiding gently. "Don't hurt him; he's got a place in this, and a job to do, same as you and I."

"Job..." croaked Vejiita and licked his parched lips. Come to think of it, they tasted fairly salty; dried blood was like that.

"We might want to get him into a tank," intoned Gokuu wisely. "Seeing as we're traveling for a while and all."

"Oh, yes," answered Cumber. "I can arrange that. Ours are super-charged, and he should be fine in a matter of minutes."

"Would _some_ body tell me what the HELL is going on?" Vejiita shouted relatively clearly.

"We're going on a trip, Vejiita-san," repeated Gokuu. "We're going to find the eighth dragon ball!" he exclaimed, and Vejiita felt yet another wave of impressive dizziness wash over his skin. He swayed in his seat.

"The tank should take care of that, too...." Cumber started to say, and Vejiita passed out.

* * *

In the main control room, a small light switched on in one of the auxiliary control panels indicating the tank's use. It was quite some time before Ru Sa thought to pay it any mind. When he did, however, it was to note with some displeasure the fact that the settings were ideal for a Saiya-jin's body - not Kyuujinshu. Taking his time, Ru Sa began walking down the length of the ship toward the regen room, frowning as he went.

* * *

On Kaiou's planet, six very concerned individuals crowded behind Kaiou sama and tried to read his mind.

"What's happening now?" Goten demanded loudly, and his brother again hushed him.

"Trunks is telling them about the eighth dragon ball," the Kaiou answered shortly, and fell silent again. He sighed. "It seems that Jouten did not tell Trunks any more about all of this than he told Rou Kaioushin."

"Which was?" asked Goten, and this time Tenshinhan shushed him.

"That Trunks has to somehow get hold of the eighth dragon ball to stop the advance of the Black. He didn't tell anybody anything else!" the Kaiou voiced, sounding a bit frustrated.

"And NOT telling people things is all of a sudden BAD?" jabbed Bulma, who was still ticked at not being told Trunks had disappeared in the first place.

"Hush," said Kaiou sama, and concentrated some more. "Gah," he said. "I'm getting interference. Something is getting in the way of a clear transmission... Oooh, darn it!" He straightened up again, morosely quitting his telepathic spying for the moment.

"I can see nothing either, Kaiou," said Kaioushin, who had been doing observation of his own. He, too, closed the connection.

"So... this means what again?" asked Goten, and Gregory sighed.

"Show respect to the Kaiou of the galaxy," he squeaked, and Goten turned a playfully vicious grin on him that sent him flying back two or three feet.

Kaiou sama sighed. "We won't know what happens now until that inter...." the Kaiou stopped. Blinked. "What?" he asked of nobody, raising his voice. "WHAT? What happened?"

"What, what?" somebody echoed behind him, and the Kaiou put his head in his hands. "Oh, no... all hope is lost... that's it... all is lost..." and he began to weep.

"Kaiou," said Kaioushin softly. "What did you see?"

"An explosion," Kaiou responded dryly. "The ship is gone. They are all gone."

Dead silence met this statement. It seemed there was nothing more to say.

* * *

"This really is quite advanced technology," informed Cumber as he carefully placed Vejiita in the tank, completely unaware of the danger coming down the hallway toward them. "And you Saiyans tend to heal fairly quickly anyway. I give him ten minutes. No more."

Gokuu settled down beside the tank, looking curiously at Trunks. "So what are we doing again?" he asked in unconscious imitation of Goten, and Trunks sighed wearily. His father had been right; too much time spent with Gokuu would do that to anybody.

"We need to somehow find the eighth dragon ball. I'm not sure where it is or what it does, what it summons, or anything. I only know that only one who is pure of heart can use it - and that no mortal can be _that_ pure of heart."

"So Jouten is being pure for you," Cumber finished for him meditatively, his expression observant and interested.

"Something like that," answered Trunks, and would say no more.

"But Trunks," said Bra. "There aren't any more dragon balls. At all."

"There is one more," said Trunks patiently. "I don't know where it is. I was told to ask you two - Cumber and Son Gokuu. Apparently," he added with a wry smile, "while willing to help out a bit, Jouten will never be willing to give us all the answers."

"Well... it was the eighth dragon ball that made Dende disappear," offered Gokuu, and Trunks nodded.

"Yes," he said. "But where does that leave us? I still don't know where to look. All I know is that Dende - in Jouten's words - was 'placed with the others.'"

Cumber wrinkled his brow in thought. "The others," he repeated, and Trunks nodded again, his eyes riveted to his father's floating form in the tank.

"The others," Trunks reiterated, and Vejiita stirred ever so slightly.

"Hmmm," Cumber mused, and for a moment his expression grew sharp and bright as his more than adequate brain went to work. "I wonder if he meant the other Nameks."

Gokuu blinked. "You mean the Namek elders that were taken from the planet Namek?" he asked.

"None other," said Cumber with a strange mixture of satisfaction and guilt. "They... we... took all the healers from one village and transported them to an alternate timeline - one in which you and Vejiita were dead and Trunks was the only warrior left. It was also where the Black originated, as did the Junsei Aion - the 'perfect iron' - which is the only defense against it."

"Mirai no Trunks," Gokuu said with some surprise, and Vejiita bubbled more noticeably.

"Wow," said Cumber, checking the readings. "He's... recovering a lot faster than he should be."

"Oh, that's because he's genetically superior," Gokuu said casually. "Descendent of the original Super Saiyan, or something."

Cumber nodded. "Yes, I know - the line of Vejiita prided themselves on that fact. But.... heh. First time I ever saw one in a regen tank."

"So the other Nameks are in the other Trunks' world," Trunks mused, bringing the topic smoothly back around as Cumber made preparations for draining.

"Yes," said Cumber slyly, smiling a bit as he worked. "And that, incidentally, is where we are headed now."

"We are," said Trunks, not really surprised. "Jouten's timing is perfect. How wonderful."

"So we go, possibly find Dende and the eighth dragon ball - and then so what? What does that mean?" asked Bra, sounding much more articulate and comprehensive than was normal for her. At the moment, however, nobody noticed.

"Then I... pick it up and see what happens," answered Trunks with a slight shrug. "I don't know how to use it." He did not sound entirely upset. Cumber looked at him.

"Jouten has really affected you," he observed, and Trunks merely nodded, content to say no more. "And this extra dragon ball, when in your hands, is supposed to do something about the Black?"

Trunks shrugged again. "It's what I'm supposed to do," he answered shortly, and left it at that. He was not about to try to explain the sense of destiny Jouten had given him. He knew they would not understand.

Bra looked at him keenly. "I think it will help," she announced, and Trunks turned his burning eyes to look at her.

"Why do you say that?" he asked, but he did not have the chance to answer. Just then, Vejiita's tank finished draining, and the prince began pounding insistently on the inside of the glass, waiting for someone to let him out.

Cumber did so. "The Black is not to be trifled with," he said as Vejiita stepped out of the tank, slipping slightly on regen fluid. "I doubt your extra ball will be of any use."

Trunks merely shrugged and waited for his father to speak.

"Somebody had better tell me what is going on right now," Vejiita announced quietly and dangerously, "or I am going to blow you all to hell."

Bra smiled. "Yup," she said. "He's all better."

Vejiita glared.

And as they explained to Vejiita the very little bit that they knew, Parsley awakened from his nap and walked into the hall where the good guys had been not five minutes before, making his way to the control room, passing Ru Sa with a nod as he went. It was time to make the jump to the alternate time line.

* * *

 _GOT to get that thing fixed,_ Parsley thought to himself as he walked down the hall and away from the regen room. The directional coordinator in the main controls STILL wasn't working right, even though he and Chive had been fiddling with it for months. Sometimes, things were just too stubborn for their own good.

 _Bah,_ he thought derisively, and nodded to Ru Sa as he passed. The captain looked very focused about something and only barely responded.

 _Well, **fine**_ , Parsley thought, miffed and a bit put off because it would take an innumerable amount of tweaking to get this ship exactly _where_ Ru Sa wanted it to go _when_ he wanted to go there and nobody even _cared._

Thinking miserably that no one understood the drudgery of techie life, Parsley proceeded to the control room and started to mess with the controls.

Ru Sa continued past him, intent only on the strange telepathic signals he was getting from the regen room. It was odd, really; he thought that just for a moment, he'd sensed...

But no. That was impossible. Gokuu could _not_ be loose and in the regen room, because that would mean that somebody had to have let him out, and that...

Would mean treason.

Ru SA frowned and continued on his way, tensing preparatorily for battle. Somebody, it seemed, was going to get squashed.

* * *

Bra was listening to the adult's conversation when she felt a very familiar presence tug on her subconscious; she suddenly stiffened and hissed.

Vejiita saw his daughter exhaling sharply through clenched teeth and knew immediately what was wrong. "Hide!" he ordered, not too loudly. "Some one's coming!"

"What?" started Gokuu "How do you...."

"Not NOW, Kakarotto! Move!"

Not fast enough. The door slid open and Ru Sa was standing there, looking not at all happy. Before he could get the chance to react to seeing four very unhampered Saiyans and Cumber sitting in the regen room congenially shooting the breeze, Vejiita was on him.

"Tried to kill my son, you BASTARD!" he roared, and the two were gone and fighting in the hallway before anybody else could react, either.

"Papa!" Shouted Trunks in warning, but it was too late; the damage was being done. Was, in fact, raging down the hallway and short-circuiting any uncovered control panel it happened to pass. Within minutes, everyone on the ship was awake.

"Oh boy, here we go," said Gokuu, and powered up to super Saiyan level three.

* * *

Parsley had not yet completed configuring the controls when the explosion happened in the hallway. And since he had left the door open - no need to close it, there was hardly any danger - the radius of the blast caught him bodily and slammed him into the control panel with a force much too strong for the ordinary steel casing to take. It shorted as well, and with no warning at all, the entire ship jumped - jerked, really, into an alternate reality with severe damage done and very little hope of return.

For everyone on board, everything went black.

* * *

**Interlude 21.2: Dende: Education**

Dende could not believe his luck. It was his third game in a row, and once again, he had a royal flush.

"Flush!" he announced, revealing his cards to the others with a flourish that was perhaps not quite kami-like.

Roshi sighed. "I'm out," he conceded, and dropped his cards on the table.

"Aw, not again," whined Oolong, and pushed over his pile of chips with a miserable resignation that would have put a hound dog to shame. Dende merely chuckled at them.

"Guys," he said for the third time. "Keep your chips. I can't eat them."

Oolong smuggled one off the table and crunched into it. "Heh. Your loss." Shrimp chips were Oolong's favorite. Among other things.

Roshi sighed and pushed back from the table. "Well, that does it for me," he said, and slowly stood. "These old bones are going to go take a nap." He nodded congenially at his fellow poker players and, without further ado, walked away.

"And my favorite program is coming on," Oolong offered and also rose to leave, taking the shrimp chips with him, and Dende was alone.

He sat in the folding chair for a little while, looking up at the blue sky, across at the far, cloud-wreathed mountains, and sighed.

Gone. It was all gone. Or it soon would be, as soon as the Black got a hold of it. The very idea that everything he was seeing now, everything he could hear - the birds, the generators, occasional snatches of traffic and construction from Satan City - would be gone without a trace and far beyond recovery was more sad that he anything he felt he should have to bear. He looked at the mountains again, lost in his own miserable thoughts, and feeling much less than adequate to handle whatever had been handed to him. Only half-aware of what he was doing, Dende rose from his seat and started to walk.

He was very deep in thought, trying to solve his problems, and going over the riddle that was Reality, the Black, Gero, and Cabbage over and over again; so deep, in fact, that what started out as a simple jaunt around the Capsule Corporation became something more before he was even aware that he had left the compound. By the time he was aware that he _had_ left it, he was squarely pointed in the direction of the mountains.

"Eeeh," he said, looking around and wondering why Trunks hadn't caught him yet. "That's... quite a walk." He looked down at his feet, curious and a bit amused. "Where do you think you're taking me?" he asked of them, and that's when the air car pulled up behind him.

"Need a ride?" asked somebody who was the spitting image of the Ox King.

Dende blinked. He was off the grounds, Trunks hadn't found him, and his instinct seemed to be trying to get him to go someplace, so...

 _Heh. Why not?_ he asked himself, and peeked with a smile in the window at the large driver. "You going to the mountains?" we wondered, scanning the man as best he could to detect intentions, good or bad.

The man - a relation of the Ox King's, surely - smiled back. "Sure thing," he said. "I'm headed that way now. Hop in, my odd green friend, and I'll give you the ride of your life."

Dende blinked a little at the man's strange wording; however, his intentions - which were very easy to see, the man was no good at blocking at all - were merely nothing more than a friendly urge combined with curiously about Dende himself. Smiling, Dende accepted the offer and climbed in, even though "the ride of your life" made very little sense to him.

\- and then they were speeding toward the far-off mountains at such a suicidal pace that Dende knew exactly what had been meant by that phrase.

They reached the mountains in less than ten minutes.

Trunks, meanwhile, was off having adventures of his own.

* * *

For Bulma it had started out being _such_ a nice day.

It was true that she was tired after the night before - hell, everybody was - but Akeno Cabbage-san was more than making up for it. Not only was he a faithful assistant and unafraid to climb creepy mountains with her in the dark, it also turned out he had more than a rudimentary knowledge of physics. He was, in fact, brilliant.

"University training," was his casual explanation, waving his hand to indicate "the time before" - before the androids, etc.; such a story was not uncommon. However, Bulma had to admit that she found it more than odd; that Cabbage-san, who had supposedly had university training some fifteen years ago, should be so up-to-date in his knowledge and experience.

Cabbage, however, didn't seem to find _anything_ unusual at all.

"Of course," he said calmly when informed about the properties of Junsei Aion, as if it made perfect sense and had been written in the sky for anybody to see. Bulma was slightly nonplused.

"Do you know how many _years_ it took me to figure all that out?" she'd hissed, and Cabbage changed tactics directly.

"And yet not one worry line on your face," he'd said with a smile, obviously altering the subject, and she, as usual, let him. If there was one thing Cabbage was best at, it was peace making. Bulma smiled back - although she had not yet and never would flirt with him.

It seemed her capacity for that had died with Vejiita.

"Stay for dinner," she insisted, to be polite. He had already stayed for breakfast and lunch. Dinner would hardly be a problem.

Unfortunately, it was after dinner that the slip-up came.

Roshi, Oolong, and Dende were out back playing poker, so _that_ was all right; Cabbage was listening to Mozart and commenting on the mental benefits thereof. And Bulma was chattering about her day.

"... And the jeep needed refueling again, but that's not really a surprise because steep slopes can really take it out of your car..." She went on like that for a while, and then Trunks innocently remarked, "Yes, the mountains are a real drain on the engines this time of year."

Bulma missed Cabbage's warning look.

"Oh, you bet," she said blithely, "especially on the northern slopes." She kept talking, uninterrupted, and for a long while Cabbage believed that they might have gotten away with it.

Wrong.

Trunks was merely waiting for his mother, whom he DID respect, to stop talking.

"So you went to the lab again anyway," he observed, and Bulma fell silent.

"Yes, I did," she said, and glared him down.

"You were safe? No accidents?" he asked, and Bulma blinked curiously.

"Yes, we were safe," she answered. "There were no problems of any kind at all." Trunks nodded once.

"Well, that's all right then," he said, surprising both Bulma and Cabbage. Bulma stared at him curiously for a moment, then continued her speech, eyes not quite leaving him for a long while.

Trunks, for his part, was inscrutable.

Later on, while Dende, Roshi, and Oolong were still playing their game, Trunks took his leave of everybody and went on a trip to Gero's lab; well - what was left of it. He had been in the place enough times, and he wanted to see if he could figure out what Bulma could have taken judging by where she had been digging.

He was very surprised to find a group of what were apparently Saiyans already there digging amongst the wreckage.

Trunks charged and they scattered like birds, disappearing every time he lost direct eye contact with them. Within mere seconds, all had were gone.

Trunks stood protectively over the mound of dirt and rock, ready to defend what was left of Gero's lab from anybody or anything that came next. He stood for a long while until his instinct allowed him to relax.

By that time, Dende had already reached the mountains - and as far as Trunks was concerned, disappeared without so much as a trace.

* * *

Dende hopped gratefully out of the air car - which, he realized happily though belatedly, meant no trail for Trunks to follow - and turned to thank the Ox-king look-a-like.

The man waved off his thanks with a smile.

"Now, don't start," he said warmly. "You and I both know there is no way you would have gotten to the mountains in time without my help."

Dende didn't know how to reply to that, so he muttered some more thanks and backed away, and that's when it fully hit him who he had been riding with this entire time.

"Ox King?" he said quietly, and the big man smiled.

"Thought you could use some help, Dende," he replied, and Dende's eyes about fell out of his head.

 _Ghosts have **cars**?_ was the only coherent thought that would, at the moment, anchor in his brain.

Ox King grew serious. "Now, you have a job to do. Don't let us down. Everybody - and I do mean everybody - is counting on you." He smiled, a little sadly this time, and waved. "Farewell, Dende-san," he said, and then vanished - poof - right before Dende's eyes.

The Namek stood still for a moment more, staring at the place where the Ox King had been.

"Ghosts do _not_ have cars," he insisted aloud, and blinked. "I guess he was... given one to help me out. That's... very strange." Instead of pondering that for the rest of the night (which he could have easily done), he started walking up the mountain's steep slope. He still was unsure where his feet wanted him to go, but after a minor miracle like that, Dende was not about to gainsay anything.

There were some things one just didn't argue with.

* * *

By the time Dende found the cave, the sun had almost disappeared completely behind the horizon. There was barely enough light to see the cave itself, much less the inside of it.

Of course, this was not a problem for Dende.

Summoning what little ki and godly powers he had, Dende began to glow - an ability he had not dared to show to Trunks in Gero's lab - and walked in.

It had seemed, coming up the mountain, that there was one particular spot that was drawing him. Calling to him, almost, and it was without doubt inside this cave. Inside this mountain.

The cool dampness of the cave was refreshing after his long hike, and at first he was just able to relax in it, observing the coloration of the stone and quality of the mineral formations. The place had an odd feel to it, one that characterized those few areas on earth where man had never or only rarely set foot. It grew darker, damper, cooler - and then, it changed.

The subtlety of the change and its flavor therein were so delicate as to at first escape Dende's notice entirely. He only gradually became aware of it, and when he did he was not entirely sure what it meant. The quality of the air was different; it became, rather than merely cool, the slightly tainted air of a place that has been breathed in - though not much - for a very long time. Secondly, he became aware of the movement. Although he was walking on solid earth, rock that had been part of the backbone of the world since there _was_ a world, he could not escape the creepy feeling that he was actually walking on... something. _Alive._

Something very like a huge snake.

Dende stopped walking.

"Hello?" he called suddenly and frighteningly aware of the third thing that had changed in this darkness: _awareness_.

Something in this cave was definitely aware.

"Hello," something answered back, and Dende started to shudder. It was a female voice - and powerful and old beyond belief. It also seemed to be coming not from any one point, but from all around him. Dende wondered if he should say anything else.

"You are here to learn," said the voice, deep and resonant and so far past merely "beautiful" that Dende knew he could never listen to another music with complete satisfaction again. For it WAS music. Somehow.

"What are you?" he asked quietly, suddenly aware of how squeaky and grating his own voice was in comparison to this.

"I am Gai," said the voice. "I am the third dragon. The Last Resource. I am the Answer for Victory." And the entire cave around him seemed to shift, to move gracefully according to some inner rhythm.

"Gai," said Dende, and translated her name in his head. "Song of victory." Yes, that fit. As she - this third dragon - seemed to throb with sleepy awareness and power of sound all around him, he thought it fit very well. "What are you doing here?" he asked, and it was a long moment before he got an answer.

"Waiting," Gai responded, and Dende nearly kicked himself. He was forgetting how to talk to dragons.

"What are you waiting for, oh Gai the beautiful?" he asked. Flattery always worked with dragons.

"I wait for the pure of heart," she said, her voice making Dende shiver with joy in places he didn't know he could shiver. "That one must be pure before Jouten, worthy beyond his own self, cleansed by a will higher than his own. That one... must have the last dragon ball." And she fell silent.

Dende stood in shock for at least a minute. "Who... could be that pure?" he asked, almost desperately.

"I know of no one," said the dragon, and Dende knew without asking that that statement included the now dead Gokuu - dead in this world, anyway. Swallowing once, he sighed deeply and decided it was more than high time he got back. But one more question before he left...

"What needs to be done with the last dragon ball when the... pure one holds it?"

The dragon laughed, and Dende's entire being floated with the sound. "Nothing - merely give to that one the ball, and he will know what to do." And something... _changed._

Dende blinked. How it had happened, he did not know - but he was back in a regular cave again. Just a cave. Nothing more. Turning, he could actually make out the cave entrance some distance behind him.

Outside, the sun had long since gone down, and the stars seemed to glitter like perfect diamonds against the deep, deep blue of the sky. It was beautiful, peaceful - and far past curfew.

Boy, was he ever going to catch it when he got home.


	22. Accidents Happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Black is freed.

Vejiita woke up first. Perhaps it had to do with his recent visit to the regen tank, or perhaps he was merely stronger in constitution than the rest of the beings around him. Whatever the reason, he was the only person to stir amidst the wreckage and bodies. He sat up.

It appeared that the entire ship had wedged itself sideways.

He - and everything else in the main hallway that had not been bolted down - lay pressed against the far side, flattened by gravity and much of it broken. Vejiita snorted. The bodies around him were hardly Saiyan now. In death, they had resumed their natural forms - odd, white skinned, far too angular. He felt disgusted merely touching them.

Rising into the air, Vejiita began flying up the hallway, looking for survivors, looking for his family, looking for Ru Sa. He was definitely in a mood to smash something.

* * *

Gokuu woke up to a painful surprise.

When the ship crashed, he had somehow come to rest on his back, impaled by a thin, metal cabinet leg that sliced through his right side. Of course, it hurt. He groaned roughly.

Cumber, who was draped over a now-horizontal regen tank like a used washcloth, heard this and stirred. "Ugh," he said casually, and slid off. He caught himself and hovered some six feet before crashing to the floor.

"Oh, that's nice," he said, observing the cock-eyed state of the ship. Then he saw Gokuu, struggling, trying to rise high enough to free himself without tearing his side up more. Cumber immediately and calmly went to work to remedy the situation.

"Don't move," he ordered, and flying down, took some kind of ki blade from his belt and used it to slice the metal leg off about an inch from Gokuu's skin.

"Mm," Cumber remarked, observing the wound. "This is going to hurt," he said, and showing smooth and prodigious strength, slid two hands underneath Gokuu and lifted him cleanly off the beam, setting him down on his feet with one hand on his back and one on his stomach to balance him. His eyes steadily searched Gokuu's.

Gokuu blinked. "Ow," he commented, and checked the small hole in his side where he had been pierced. "That really hurts," he added conversationally, and straightened his gi over the wound almost modestly.

Cumber started chuckling. "You really are something else, Son Gokuu," he said, crossing his arms.

Gokuu looked around, eyes wide at the sight of regen tanks sticking straight out from the walls like old transistor radio bulbs.

"Hey! We're sideways!" he announced, and Cumber nodded.

"Yes, we are," he said. "I don't know exactly how, but it's not good. That means we've crashed."

Gokuu kept looking. "Trunks and Bra," he said. "What happened to them?"

Cumber pulled his scouter off his belt and switched it on. "Well, there's someone over th - " he started to point, and a sudden explosion came from the direction he was indicating. Gokuu and Cumber both ducked, ki shields up instinctively to protect themselves from flying shrapnel.

Trunks stood there, powering down now and blushing. They stared at him.

"Um, hi," Trunks said, embarrassed at his slight overreaction. "Didn't know if, ah, anyone was attacking. Or something." Cumber snorted.

"Saiyans," he muttered, and Gokuu looked at the debris with some concern.

"I hope Bra wasn't in that..." he started to say, and then Bra announced her own presence in a more conventional manner. In another room out in the hall, she screamed.

"Hoo boy," Gokuu said again, and powered up once more before racing out to find her.

* * *

Ru Sa woke up in a most ungainly and uncomfortable of positions. There had been an open door behind him when the blast went off, and somehow, he had gotten wedged half-way inside it, the thing closed on him as though to cut him in half.

"Ugh," he said and struggled to free himself. A small noise off to his left caught his attention.

Lower in the room, up against the wall, with a large, broken pieces of cabinet on top of her, lay Bra. Unconscious. Ru Sa stared at her, wondering how she had gotten in here with him wedged into the entrance as he was. Then he started to think about it how very handy it was that she had been dropped practically into his lap, and smiled. Losing no time, he shifted his shape only slightly, slipped through the smashed door, and into the room; he flew down to her, lifted off the tool cabinet, and picked her up.

Bra stirred faintly in his arms, still in mild shock from being caught in the explosion and flung out the door as the ship crash-landed in wherever it was they had jumped to. Ru Sa smiled at her again.

"Now, what do we do with you, young lady?" he asked her sleeping form, considering the various uses he still could get out of her, given the situation.

Outside in the hallway, he could hear voices now - sounded like _some_ body besides him had survived. Unfortunately, the direction from which those voices came meant that said survivors were in the regen room - where he had just seen none other than Kakarotto, Vejiita, Bra, and Cumber before Vejiita attacked him like a madman. And - just maybe - he had also seen Trunks. Alive. Which made no sense.

That was for contemplation later.

Ru Sa looked down at the unhappy, sleeping form of Bra. He had an edge with this in his hands. All sorts of possibilities were open to him, oh yes they were.

A sudden explosion came from the regen room.

Bra woke up, immediately responding to her brother's brief moment of groggy panic, and not even looking at who was holding her, screamed. Ru Sa jumped.

"Bah," he said dismissively and held her out from him with one hand clamped around her throat. "No more of that," he ordered, eyeing her with slight disapproval. "I am going to make good use of you right now, and if you cause me trouble I will pop your head off, just like this." To prove his point he gave her one sharp squeeze.

Bra choked slightly, eyes wide. Not being a stupid girl - and filled with enough memories from Chive to know that Ru Sa simply did not bluff - she did her best to indicate acquiescence by a short, stifled nod.

"Smart girl," he said approvingly, and tucking her under his arm like a bag of laundry, he flew up to the door. Thinking quickly, he moved to the wall and pressed a few buttons, grateful for the still-functioning computers. _Having_ the girl was one thing, but these Saiyans were still faster. No use taking chances. He turned at the sound of his name.

"Ru Sa!" Gokuu was hovering there, Super Saiyan level three and looking extremely peeved. "You put her down right now!" he shouted, and Ru Sa smiled at him.

"Make me," he announced, and Gokuu launched right at him. To his credit, the force field that Ru Sa had put up only barely repelled his forward charge. Gokuu went bouncing back into the hallway, hardly hurt but more than a little surprised, and landed right on top of Vejiita. They both _whoofed_ out air and went falling down the length of the ship, landing with a crash on the bottom.

Ru Sa chuckled to himself, amused at his game.

"Whoopsie," he called after them.

And then Trunks came.

The young man hovered slowly down until he was in front of the door, looking very grave, his hair blowing back from his face as he raised his ki. Ru Sa looked unconcerned.

"Toronksu," he said casually, as though greeting a neighbor in the grocery store and not a boy who should, by all rights, be dead. "Lose something?" he said and held up Bra to be sure he could see her better.

Trunks did not smile or shout or threaten. He did not even go Super Saiyan. Instead, he said a very strange thing.

"The ship is about to fall," he said calmly, and Ru Sa blinked.

"What?" he asked, and frowned in momentary confusion.

"Into the crevasse. It is going to fall. Check your sensors," said Trunks. "And I think you had better hurry, or we are all going to die."

As if on cue, a horrible, metal-against-rock screeching sound suddenly echoed through the hallway, painfully sounding in the room where Ru Sa presently was. The ship, apparently knocked off its precarious balance by the combined weight of Gokuu and Vejiita slamming into one end of it, lurched once.

Cursing obscurely in another language, Ru Sa disengaged the force field and flew for the auxiliary control room as fast as he could, knowing that the regular one had been rendered worthless by the explosion. He did not even think to disbelieve Trunks. Nothing in the boy's eyes left room for lies.

The ship shuddered again.

"SHIT!" he shouted more conventionally and dropped Bra, needing two hands to do what he did now. Flying like a mad man, he started flipping switches and punching in codes to transfer control of the vessel to him. Unfortunately, it was taking a while; there was no one in there to help him.

Trunks casually caught Bra in his arms and watched him go, apparently unconcerned. Bra looked up at him in wonder.

"You're all right," she said, and Trunks spared a moment to smile down at her.

"Of course I am, silly girl," he said, and tweaked her nose.

Bra burst into tears.

At that precise moment, Vejiita managed to disentangle himself from the still-stunned Gokuu and rocketed up the hall, heading for Ru Sa with murder in his eyes. Trunks, still carrying Bra, moved smoothly into his path.

"OUT OF THE WAY!" Vejiita roared, and made as if to move past him.

Trunks just looked at him.

With eyes that had seen Jouten. With the face of one who had spent time purifying himself beyond that which any mortal could do alone. With the look of a man who had spent time _outside_ of Time itself. In his expression was absolute non-surrender.

And amazingly, Vejiita slowed - stopped - stared - and started shaking.

"What... what has gotten into you?" he asked, looking at what used to be his son with something approaching awe.

"God," Trunks answered simply, and turned to go see if he could help Ru Sa keep the ship from slipping into further danger. Vejiita stayed where he was, head craned upward, watching him go.

"What the hell is going on around here?" he demanded of nobody in particular, and followed Trunks at a much more sedate pace.

With more metallic screeching, the ship continued to slide.

* * *

**Interlude 22.1: Dende Covers the Bases**

Dende thought long and hard before he decided to walk home. He wanted to fly - he _could_ fly, but the problem was that an action like that would announce to every ki-sensitive creature for miles around exactly where he was. He didn't want to do that.

On the other hand, walking home would ensure that he arrived _much_ later, and that - considering the emotional state of everyone around here of late - was perhaps not such a good idea either.

Mostly he just wished he could go _home_. Period. Away from all this craziness. No more extra dragons or the balls that came with them. No more crazy time traveling. No more Black.

He knew he could not.

Dende started walking.

He really, really wanted to go home.

* * *

Bee was, in general, a very happy dog.

He had little to worry about - nothing in the way of physical needs, anyway, because Bulma took good care of everybody who lived in her house. In fact, until Ru Sa had kicked him the other night, he had never even known real physical pain. He knew he was loved, knew he would be taken care of, and for now, knowing that was enough.

At the moment, however, he was less than pleased to be in the kitchen with his fellow Bulma-beneficiaries.

There was a lot of shouting. And as multi-lingual as he was, Bee was still only a dog. He really only understood that everybody was unhappy - although they were NOT being unhappy at him, which was good.

He sat in his master's lap and listened.

* * *

"I do NOT care if you don't trust him, he is MY guest and he is MISSING! _Any_ thing could have happened to him! Anything at all!" Bulma stood, fists loosely clenched, and glared at her annoyingly unresponsive son.

"No," Trunks said for the third time, and Bulma's coloring went a bit more livid.

"We should wait to see where he has been before we decide such things, child," Roshi chided gently. "Then we can decide if it is worth locking him in his room with a water hoses under the door for sustenance or not," he suggested, and they both turned on him.

"STAY OUT OF THIS!" roared Bulma, and Trunks added, "Please." Thus, with Roshi subdued, they continued their debate.

Mr. Satan watched in silence, his mind working. Perhaps Dende wasn't coming back at all. Perhaps, in fact, he had already GONE...

The door opened, and a very dusty Dende walked in.

Four different variations on "where the HELL have you been?" hit him at once, their speakers crowding toward him. Dende pushed past them all with nary a grunt and went upstairs.

"Hey," said Oolong, but Dende did not answer. The only thing that he could coherently think of right now was his bed. And sleep. And not using his feet ever again as long as he lived.

The door slammed.

"Well, THAT was interesting," said Bulma, and then Trunks walked out of the room. "Where are you going?" she asked, and her son turned in the doorway to answer her.

"Hunting," he said inexplicably, and took off into the air. She stared after him, watching him go with an odd look on her face.

"Why do I have a bad feeling about this?" she asked, and nobody even tried to answer her.

* * *

Cabbage peeked out the laboratory door and watched Trunks fly away.

"Even better," he said to himself and continued simultaneously working on Bulma's assignment and going through Gero's journal. He still hadn't found what he needed. Sighing and resigning himself to a fruitless and boring morning, he continued searching.

* * *

Dende was asleep, flat on his stomach, for all of twelve minutes before he had an idea.

That happens to thinkers, sometimes; they can be sound asleep, dreaming their dreams, when the solution to a problem that has been bothering them all day suddenly comes clear. It was that way just now.

Rolling over, he sat straight up and stared with wide eyes at the bureau across the way. "The COVER!" he said to it, and hopped out of bed. He was dressed again and down the stairs before even he could blink.

* * *

In the kitchen, only Mr. Satan now remained. He eyed Dende warily as the Namek came bounding down the stairs.

"Mr. Satan, I've got to - "

"I know, I know, you've got to go," boomed Mr. Satan, meditatively stroking Bee with what limited movement he had in his left arm.

Dende blinked. "Well, no, I'm going to the - "

"Don't tell me."

Dende stared at him.

"That way, I won't have to lie when I'm asked where you've gone."

Dende blinked again, and nodded. He had to get to the lab. Excusing himself, he took his leave of Mr. Satan and ran out the door. Mr. Satan watched him go.

"Bee," he said softly. "Baby, wake up." The dog perked his head up, as alert as any dog just come awake could be. "Go. Go protect Dende. Go on, boy. Go."

Obedient as always when words were used that he understood, Bee jumped off Mr. Satan's lap and ran out the doggie-door after Dende. He would do his master's bidding.

Mr. Satan watched him go, hoping he would be all right, hoping this would be enough to repay Dende for his kindness to both dog and master. He had a feeling he would not be seeing Dende again.

* * *

Dende ran lightly across the lawn and toward the lab, at first not noticing Bee right on his heels. The dog got his attention with a sharp, short yap.

"Yah!" said Dende, jumping. "Bee! What are you doing out here?"

Bee in response yipped at him a little more, tail wagging, then sat in the grass and panted at him. Dende could not help chuckling.

"Bee, go away," he said. "Go away, Bee."

Bee did not.

Dende knelt down, wondering what he was to do with the dog. Suddenly, Bee leapt forward, snagged some of Dende's robe in his teeth, and started pulling for the lab with all his might.

"What..." Dende started to ask, and then heard the car engine start up in the front parking lot. Dende took off for the lab.

He was inside the door just in time to avoid being seen by Bulma, who pulled her jeep around and took off down the road, going for groceries. Dende watched her go, a bit relieved that she had not seen him. He looked down.

"Why, you were trying to warn me, weren't you, Bee?"

"Looked that way to me," said Cabbage, from behind him. Dende jumped again.

"Hello there," Dende said by way of greeting, and moved fully into the room. Cabbage sat, Gero's book in his lap, surrounded by various burning beakers filled with chemicals. He smiled.

"I'm baby-sitting her lab," he said, and closed the book. Dende could not help staring at it.

"May I see that?" he asked, unconsciously taking a step nearer.

Cabbage tilted his head. "You don't have to ask _me_ , Dende," he said, handing the book over to him. "It's not exactly mine to be looking at in the first place."

Dende took the book gingerly, not happy with having to hold it at all. He looked up. "Have you found what you needed yet?" he asked him, hating the very feel of the soft leather in his hands.

"You mean the dates regarding Gero's Black? No. Found out a lot of other stuff, though," he said, and chuckled. "Is there something in particular you would like to find?"

"Have you told the... others... what other 'stuff' you found yet?" Dende asked evenly, wishing he could just burn the book and be done with it.

"No," answered Cabbage evenly.

"And why not?" said Dende.

"Because it is not 'stuff' that I would be comfortable with my own people knowing. How to extract information from the dead, things like that."

Dende nodded once. "And would it be a relief for you if I were to remove it?"

Cabbage reacted as though he had expected this all along. "Of course," he said, and handed him a small shearing knife.

"I think I'll need something bigger," Dende replied, judging the thickness of the covers.

Cabbage blinked. "Alright," he said, and took out a much larger paring knife, used for who-knew-what. Dende took it absently.

"Thank you," he said, and placed the book on the floor, opened, pages down. He then stood on it.

Cabbage watched with some amusement. "Is this some kind of Namekian ritual of which I am not aware?" he asked.

"No," said Dende, and strained slightly. A little work with the knife and a lot of pulling later, he had half the cover off.

Cabbage's eyes opened wider. "Would you like me to help you with that, Dende?" he asked, as Dende pulled off the other half.

"No, thank you," he said, placing both covers flat on the table beside him and picking up the book. He then went to work getting the binding off, removing all the leather completely.

"I think I'm going to have to pay for that," Cabbage remarked blithely, still trying not to show too much surprise at Dende's actions. Dende finished ripping the rest of the cover off and looked at Cabbage, knife ready.

"What else do you want me to take out?" he asked, and Cabbage laughed.

"I didn't want you to take the covers off to begin with," he said. "But the entries that are most damaging start June 5th, around 770."

Dende found what he was referring to quickly - really, the thing was marvelously organized - and began deftly cutting pages. Cabbage watched him, now perfectly serious.

"What are you going to do with those pages, Dende?" he asked. Dende finished slicing and skimmed through the book, looking for anything more that could potentially be dangerous.

"Burn them, most likely. But most of all make sure they don't end up in the wrong hands."

"Which, obviously, mine are," quipped Cabbage a bit sadly, looking down at his hands as he spoke. Dende stopped and looked up at him.

"Cabbage," he said. "You have been extremely helpful to me. Just this right now - making sure that these pages do not go into the control of people who would use them wrongly - is probably essential to what we're both doing. I appreciate you."

Cabbage looked at him wryly.

"Thank you, I think," he said. "You're not used to giving compliments, are you?"

Dende chuckled, cutting the last of the pages he considered dangerous from the book. "About as used to it as you are to receiving them, I think."

"Accurate," Cabbage admitted, and watched with a bit of consternation as Dende tucked the pages into his belt.

"Be careful with those," he said, and Dende looked at him oddly.

"And you just be _careful,_ " he warned. Cabbage accepted the warning calmly, having no idea how much he had already changed, how much he had come to disagree with Ru Sa and Ru Sa's methods, that he would die at the hands of Ru Sa some three weeks later.

"I will," he said, nodding comfortably. "Now get out of here. Before you get caught and get us both in trouble."

Dende smiled, nodded, took the book covers, and bid him farewell. He turned back at the door. "Do you want me to tell you if I find out anything?" he said, thinking of the information he might get once he ripped the covers apart.

"Only if it has to do with the date that Gero got the Black," Cabbage answered, leaving it at that. Dende nodded and left the lab, going across the lawn, into the house, and up to his room, nervous and ready to study the covers until he had figured their mystery out. Bee stayed on his heels the whole time.

Cabbage watched him go, trying not to think to hard about what he had just done. He recalled, wryly, his second conversation with Dende a few days ago, in which he had told the Namek that by the time they - the Kyuujinshu - had gotten a hold of Gero's journal there had been pages missing. He had had no idea that he was the one responsible for that.

Cabbage laughed softly to himself, simply because he was the type of person who liked to do so; pursing his lips, he checked absently on the experiments Bulma had him overseeing. It seemed that yet again, Irony was having her way.

* * *

Ru Sa cursed one more time and kicked the control panel in frustration.

And at long last, the repulsors finally came online.

Profusely thanking the gods he had just been cursing, Ru Sa switched them on and eased the ship, still sideways, away from the cliff's edge, not allowing it to slide down any further. He did not right it yet because he did not know where they were, and simply navigating a vessel that size without looking first could be more disastrous than allowing it to slide off the cliff. Sweating a bit from the strain of this day, he brought the information up on the mini-screen embedded in the panel before him.

For a moment, he just stared at what he saw. It made no sense, and even if it did it was simply too good to be true.

One grew used to seeing certain things on the read-outs when one jumped from place to place and time to time. There were always some varying factors, "parallel dimensions" or not, such as the ratio of various kinds of radiation, or the degree to which entropy had lessened the mass total within sensor range. Even the particular amount of lives lost and wear and tear on the "walls" of the dimensions themselves ( "walls" being the term that the Kyuujinshu had given to the seemingly fragile time-and-spatial separators that kept one dimension from crashing into another) were like scuff marks accumulated through time.

None of that was here.

None. Nothing. As though this particular place was completely pristine, absolutely perfect, untouched by the ravages of either time or anything else's passing. In fact... Ru Sa stared at the echo test coming back on the radar; apparently, all 16 galaxies were here and intact.

Impossible. Buu had _eaten_ all but four - this was known fact. Ru Sa frowned and kept checking the readings.

Now, he noticed something else interesting. The last time they had jumped, Cabbage had casually remarked on the small sort of - hole - their ship had left in the "wall" of the dimension they had just entered. It seemed unimportant; nothing was immediately compromised as far as they could see. Just a footprint that they would leave in their passing wherever they went.

Well, that was not here, either.

Ru Sa's expression grew more puzzled; he turned the sensors inward and had them scan the inside of the ship, already knowing what damage was done but wanting to see if they were accurate, correct.

They were.

Ru Sa did not know about the Original Timeline; he did not know that the majority of the gods had been looking for it with no success, that they believed it to be the one place that the Black could not touch.

That last part, however, Ru Sa figured out on his own.

His face paled. A place where the Black could not come? Was such a thing POSSIBLE? He continued to run the sensors, trying to look busy to put off the inevitable confrontation that would occur once he was done here. It took him only moments to confirm it. Wherever he was, it was practically perfect - none of the catastrophic events that had shaken other dimensions had taken place here. From what he could tell, it was not even as populated as other galaxies; the earth, below him now, had barely any life on it at all. Curious, he switched on the sensors that would pick up communication waves; such things, once sent out into space, kept going forever, endless ripples, so if there HAD been any kind of radio frequency played or anything transmission of any kind, he would find it.

There were none.

It was a full minute after the impact of this hit that Ru Sa thought to check WHEN they were. This was possible by measuring the amounts of heat still in the sun, by how much silt was on the bottom of the ocean on the planet below, etc. He wasted no time in doing so.

And then stared like a full-blown idiot at what came up on the screen.

He had assumed - merely because of the undamaged state of things - that this was the dawn of time, the Very Beginning, or some such thing. He had been wrong. This was the exact same year as when they had jumped from the other timeline. It was just perfect, that was all. Absolutely... impervious.

He stared for a good long time before Vejiita made impatient noises in the doorway and got his attention again.

"Right," Ru Sa said to nobody and continued working on more buttons, pulling the ship out of the large crater it had managed to create on the small, odd planet between the earth and its moon. There was, naturally, no damage done to the outside of the ship; this was _Junsei Aion_ , after all. Unfortunately, it seemed that the life support systems were all but off line, and they only had enough remaining power left for two jumps - and since the navigational systems _were_ down, that would be like leaping in the dark.

Slowly but surely, the ship twisted itself around, hallways echoing as things slid from wall to floor, responding to the change in gravity. Soon enough, all was horizontal and right with the world once again.

Trunks moved further into the room. "We need to go to the timeline in which you dropped off the other Nameks," he said with quiet authority.

Ru Sa felt what was for him a very unusual sensation: something akin to regret.

He did not want to leave here.

He pursed his lips again, thinking quickly... and saved the time and spatial coordinates of the place on his computer.

"Very well," he said, "but it will take me a few minutes to configure the ship for that. All our navigational systems are offline. Thanks," he said, glaring pointedly at Vejiita, "to some extraordinarily short tempers belonging to short royal persons on board."

Vejiita hissed and nearly charged him, but Gokuu, who had by this point recovered, grabbed him by the arms and kept him from moving forward.

"Not until he's got us where we need to go, Vejiita," he chided softly, as though correcting a recalcitrant child.

Vejiita spat on the floor and subsided. "Later for you," he promised severely, and went to see after his daughter. Ru Sa snorted after him.

"Remind me to be scared," he said, knowing it was a stupid comment and not giving a damn. He was already making plans to take them where they wanted to go.... and leave them there. He was coming back here. To rule, to live, he did not know what - and it did not matter.

Trunks watched him in silence, suspecting betrayal but not knowing enough to be able, at this stage, to put a stop to it.

* * *

At that moment, Cumber was at the other end of the ship, looking rather rather pale and dealing with the dead.

By some freak chance, the explosion and jolt that had hit the ship had killed all but himself, Ru Sa, and the earthlings. There were none others of his kind left.

Cumber stood where he was and clenched his fists, feeling a horrible weight in his heart. Gone. All but two of the Kyuujinshu were gone. He spent a bare moment railing against whatever gods of the sky were responsible for this, for doing such things to him and his people...

But no. That was immature. After all, the Kyuujinshu had had their time in the sunlight - in full and with extras. Perhaps it was merely time for them to cease to exist.

He shed some tears anyway as he stood there, running names through his head, feeling pain for the passing of such a simple thing as a people, and wishing for a chance to replay. To make it better. Or at least, not hurt as much.

He was somewhat surprised to feel Gokuu's hand on his shoulder.

That Saiyan looked at him steadily, all man right now and no boy, compassion and understanding showing in his eyes. But of course - all of _his_ people were gone too, weren't they? And two left, just the same as the Kyuujinshu.

But at least Gokuu could repopulate.

Cumber had no way to do that.

He stood, looking into Gokuu's eyes, not sobbing but not bothering to wipe his tears either, and something between them seemed to transfer. Some sort of... understanding.

In that moment, Cumber understood that he would give his life for Gokuu as much as Gokuu would give his life for him. 

As if instinctively knowing that Cumber needed time to deal with this revelation, Gokuu patted him once on the shoulder and turned and left, going back up the hallway in silence, slowly and firmly.

Cumber watched him go.

He really had nothing at all to say.

* * *

Ru Sa finished fiddling with his devices, pausing now and then to wipe sweat from his face. He was not doing well at all.

He had been too long without a fix. That last shot had been supposed to last a week. So much for that theory.

He paused again to breathe slowly a few times, his lungs simply not taking in as much oxygen as they should. If he did not do something soon, he was going to pass out. The thought momentarily crossed his mind of going to what was left of Chive's lab and trying to replicate some of her last formula. At this point, he would need something that powerful just to survive until he could get back to this place.

The thought also occurred to him to merely forgo the serum completely and go after Cumber.

Heh. Wouldn't THAT give that Saiyan-sympathizer a surprise? Indeedy, it would. As a general rule, Kyuujinshu did not attack their own. Hell, rule, nothing - it was _taboo._

Ru Sa had already drained two.

He still felt a little bad about Shitake, truthfully, but it really had been necessary; Shitake's neck had been broken, and thanks to his lack of serum, he wasn't healing properly at all. It had been only kind to put him out of his misery.

Now, Cabbage, on the other hand, had been a different story altogether. The man had very nearly jumped ship. And all because of some technicality over the treatment of the Briefs female....

In the end, after a long and pointless argument, Cabbage had all but threatened to go to the Saiyans and tell them what was really going on. This could not be allowed. Furious and not quite knowing what else to do, Ru Sa had attacked him.

After it was over, Ru Sa had looked down at the desiccated corpse and could not quite believe what he had done. To his knowledge, no Kyuujinshu have EVER done this before.

First time for everything.

And then Gohan had interfered, and everything had just gone haywire from that point on. Part of his mind could not help but think that the total crash of all his carefully laid plans was only due vengeance from some god or other for breaking such an important rule.

This did not matter now. Shaking his head to clear it slightly, he went back to messing with controls. In a minute or so, they would be ready to jump. He would take them to that dead world from which came the Black. Certainly. And once he had killed them all - how did not matter, he was going to do it - then he would come back here and make it his new home. It did not bother him so much that he would be alone. After thousands of years of camaraderie, he rather suspected the change would be... pleasant.

He fumed and planned as he worked, and Trunks watched him, unable to know exactly what he was planning but trying to prepare for it anyway. And far away from them both, in places left completely empty, the Black - which was twisting more and more dangerously as it continued to hit the holes the Kyuujinshu's ship had left behind - stayed on its stolid course, unstoppable and uncaring. And nobody had any idea how much it would change all their plans before the end.

* * *

**Interlude 22.2: Dende Goes Home**

Dende sat in his room and peered closely at the pieces of leather on his bed, not really wanting to touch them any more at all. Bee seemed of similar opinion. The dog sat on the bed next to him and positively glared at the covers, growling at them every once in a while for the sake of appearance. Dende chuckled wryly.

"I know, boy," he said, absently scratching behind the dog's ears. Bee did not respond.

"Well," he sighed. "Might as well not put it off any more." Taking up the knife, he began to very carefully and precisely slice along the edges of the front cover.

Inside both covers was half a sheet of paper.

Dende put them together and looked at them, frowning slightly as he translated. They were in ancient Japanese. It seemed to be some kind of spell.

"An... opening spell? What?" He read further, disturbed.

According to the side notes in Gero's handwriting, this parchment gave a spell meant for the banishment of demons. It opened a doorway into the lower hells.

Dende frowned and read further. Gero had used it. According to his less-than-detailed notes, he had gone IN there - and come out, having captured some of the - essence - of the place - in a jar. His special breakable glass, no doubt. And that meant...

An explosion sounded from far away, rattling the windows in their frames and scaring the dog very much; for all the world, it sounded like a volcano going off. Dende raced to the window.

Black smoke - not unlike that which accompanied lava - was slowly settling in the far distance, as though a large cloud of charcoal dust had been shot into the air. And as it landed....

Things just weren't THERE anymore.

Dende felt the first real stab of panic.

He was seeing the coming of the Black.

The stuff drifted, settling slowly, and began to move in a westerly direction, thankfully away from Satan City. But still...

Damnit, there were PEOPLE over there. Not many, it was true, but...

Barely even thinking, he turned and ran out the door, heading as if to help, as if he thought there was something he could do, even if only to delay the inevitable.

Bee raced out the door after him.

* * *

Amidst the explosion, things disappearing horribly into nothingness all around him, Trunks fought hand to hand with Ru Sa, having to split half his concentration to avoid from stepping in, getting pushed into, or landing on any of this... _stuff_... that was eating everything.

He had gone back to the lab after Dende had arrived at the Capsule Corporation. A feeling - a nagging, powerful feeling - had developed in his gut that something horrible was about to happen there. So he went. Circled it twice. And found, on the leeward side, an opening that someone had very carefully and very determinedly dug into the hill.

Infuriated, he had gone in. And found something horrible indeed.

The lab was not entirely destroyed. Yes, he had brought down the roof - but there was a room, into which this cave led, that was whole and untouched. And inside...

Trunks barely had time to register the large, regen-sized glass cylinders with pulsating black... _something_... in them before he was attacked. And darned if there wasn't the same man who had broken into Bulma's lab just the other day.

"You," the stranger snarled in his face and started fighting.

Trunks dodged and hit back, not at all outclassed, but puzzled by the stranger's behavior. He acted as though he KNEW him... which was impossible.

"VEJIITA'S CHILD!" the stranger suddenly roared, and with no further warning shot an absolutely huge ball of ki at him. Trunks deflected it, but only barely, surprised as he was by this statement. He powered up almost instantly to Super Saiyan level two and bounced the thing away from himself.

The power ball went firing upward into the air and hit the ceiling, carving a huge chunk out of the rock and bringing small pieces of stone down on their heads.

And on the glass holding the black thing.

"NO!" the stranger shouted, and tore at Trunks with a ferocity that was so personal in its hatred as to put some small hesitation into Trunks' own attack. He fell back slightly, just enough to get out of arm's reach.

"I don't know you, stranger," he said as soothingly as he could, having the distinct feeling that breaking this cave - breaking that glass - would be the worst thing that could possibly happen. He had to stop that from happening. At all costs.

Perhaps responding to the growing pressure and tenseness in the room, the thing in the tank billowed like black smoke - almost as though trying to get out.

Ru Sa, for his part, was almost beyond speaking. Here - he had found it, FOUND it - the Black, BEFORE it was released, when it could still be contained - and this brat... _Vejiita's_ brat... was about to stop him.

He leveled a finger at him. "YOU have no right to be here! We can stop it! We came all the way BACK to stop it! And you DARE to try to stop ME?"

Trunks glanced back at the undulating blackness in the tank and felt his heart clench even further. That thing was death and madness. He knew without even a doubt.

"Let's not do this here," he said, not quite daring to back toward the door and leave this obviously unhinged man unsupervised. He glanced again at the tubes.

Ru Sa saw that glance. And misinterpreted it.

"YOU CAN'T HAVE IT!" he shouted, and raced at Trunks once more. Having no choice, Trunks fought, keeping an eye on the cylinder and trying not to get anywhere near it.

The place began to shake as their combined ki rose, and, already shaken as it was by Trunks' destruction of the larger, inner cave, more pieces of rock began to fall down out of the walls and ceiling.

One of them hit the glass squarely on the top.

Both Trunks and Ru Sa froze.

The thing inside burbled. Surged. And suddenly, as though kept in there by incredible pressure, it blew up and outward, taking the top of the mountain with it and raining both men with rock and debris. They screamed.

* * *

Dende flew as fast as he could, carrying people out of the way, unable to reach them all and trying to block out the sounds of their choked-off screams as they ceased to exist. Already, sirens and alarms were sounding in the distance as the humans began their weak efforts to understand and stop whatever had happened. Dende flew with tears on his cheeks.

And below him, helping him, was Bee.

The dog had a genius for sniffing people out, people who were hiding, or perhaps just living in odd corners, in huts that had been camouflaged to blend into the background. Bee would bark and Dende would dive, and between the two of them, they saved some four families before the Black caught up with them and engulfed the area.

And now, Dende flew back in the direction of the Capsule Corporation, Bee in his arms, unable to do anyone more good at all. A flash of light caught his eye. Down there, on the ground, right in the center of the explosion, was Trunks.

* * *

"Not again..." Ru Sa said in disbelief, unsure what had happened, whose fault it was, how the Black had gotten out. He turned to look at Trunks, teeth bared. "NOT AGAIN!" he roared, and resumed fighting.

Trunks, for his part, would have been just as happy to simply leave at this point. Large debris and black _stuff_ was falling and drifting all around them, and already everything on the floor was gone, the black cloud curling and floating along like smoke. Not daring to so much as touch it, both fighters were battling in the air.

Which air was rapidly being filled with falling, smoky tendrils of death.

"Stop this!" Trunk shouted back, and the man seemed to hesitate.

"Time to say goodbye, Trunks," he said, and Trunks braced himself for another blow. But instead of trying to hit him, this man suddenly shifted, melted, changed form entirely and became some sort of large insect, long and skinny, and promptly flew away, smoothly threading its way through the falling Black and getting out of sight before Trunks could so much as blink.

He tried to follow.

Black was falling all around him, and at this point only the farthest edges of the cave walls were left whole. The ground below him was completely hidden from view by drifting, tendrilled black mist, and for all he knew was completely gone. He zipped and dodged, seeing a clear spot, and tried to make it out of the way before it was too late. But the stuff around him seemed to be - 

He actually _saw_ one tendril change direction and reach for him before it touched him.

He did not even feel it when the Black barely graced his side, causing an odd moment of dizzied spinning - he was now slightly overbalanced - and an explosion of numbness up and down the left side of his body that made it shockingly impossible to think clearly. In that moment, he knew he was crashing. He slammed into the ground, some distance from the epicenter of the explosion but hardly out of harm's way. His side was beginning to hurt now, a dull, aching throb that seemed to eclipse his thoughts and dim his vision.

It was Bee's barking that got his attention.

"Wha... Bee?" he asked dizzily, feeling pain now, so much pain. He did not want to look down and see what had been done to his side.

Bee leapt in front of his face and started licking him, barking, trying to get him to get up, get a move on, something. Dende was just behind him.

"Oh, hell," the Namek said, noting the slices of body missing cleanly from Trunks' arm and side. He knelt and picked him up as carefully as he could.

More huge rocks, spit from the mountain top during the explosion, came raining down around them, and Dende hesitated no more before taking off. Bee ran along as well as he could beneath them.

"Damnit," said Dende, knowing that Trunks's safety MUST come first but unwilling to leave the faithful dog behind. Putting on a burst of speed, he lay Trunks down carefully, well out of the range of the Black, and went back.

Bee suddenly cried out sharply. One of the chunks of rock had hit him squarely on the back.

"NO!" shouted Dende, and dove down after him, grabbing the dog, trying to heal him before it was -

A cloud of Black, fibrous and undulating, settled directly on top of them and Trunks could see no more.

"No..." he said, barely able to move or think for the pain and dizziness that were now his. Gritting his teeth, he rose into the air, looking for them for their ki, anything.

Both were gone as though they had never existed.

Feeling horror and guilt in his chest, Trunks flew in a wobbly path back to the Capsule Corporation, determined to warn his mother, to try to help, to do whatever he could to stop this monstrosity that was engulfing everything.

And to tell Mr. Satan that his dog was gone.

* * *

Moot was just sitting and playing with some odd puzzle or other when Dende made his appearance.

"Hello, Moot," Dende said wearily, and Moot spun around.

"DENDE!" he cried and rushed at him. Dende smiled, tired, and sad, and let Bee slip out of his hands and to the ground so he could take Moot into his arms in a proper hug. Not one to miss out on the celebration, Bee capered happily and started licking Moot's feet.

Moot's eyes became as big as saucers. "What..." he started to ask, and then the others, alerted by Moot's small cry, came pouring in from the outside and all corners of the compound. Bee panted, thrilled with the company, and greeted them all.

"Well," said Muuri, staring. "Apparently you did not come back to us empty handed."

"Bee came along for the ride. Which I had no clue was going to happen right then," Dende explained, putting Moot back down and absently kneeling to scratch Bee's head.

Reep laughed. A very, very strange sound indeed, but at this point no one had anything left in them that could be surprised.

"A pet for Moot," Reep explained, and Dende tried to glare at him.

"Mr. Satan's dog this was," he said, his speech patterns naturally falling into rhythm with Reep's.

"Oh, hardly," Reep assured him, and grinned his big, toothy grin as Moot carefully patted Bee on the head. "The Black would have had him, then and there. This way, some joy for some - and one life to spare."

Dende felt his eyes welling with tears. _What about Bulma? And Trunks? And..._

"Hush, Kami," ordered Reep carefully, although Dende had not verbalized a word. "The ship is arriving. The One comes... he who is to hold the dragon ball. But he does not come alone."

Dende sighed deeply and tried to mentally prepare himself. It seemed that he was not going to get any rest at all until this thing was over with - one way or another.

He watched Moot play a bit with Bee and had to wonder what would have happened if he had been near Trunks rather than Bee when the transfer occurred.

Such things, he decided, were best not dwelt on.

Walking out the door, he wiped the clammy sweat from his brow - he still felt a bit cold and numb, his body here having just woken up from what was practically a coma - and stood outside, waiting for the "One" and his entourage to come. Whoever the hell _that_ was. He puzzled, for a moment, over the way he had seen the Black actually _reach_ for Trunks... that seemed so odd, now.

Ah, well. Questions upon questions, and all would be answered later. It seemed now there was nothing to do but wait.


	23. Parallel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many answers are forthcoming.
> 
> Unfortunately, they only explain the past.

**Space: 1**

Cumber was perplexed. He wasn't often perplexed, and when it happened there was usually a doozy of a reason. At present, however, there was just Gokuu.

"I feel fine!" Gokuu told him with a smile, and Cumber felt more confused than ever.

"Fine?" he reiterated, and Gokuu smiled more broadly yet and hopped off the table.

"Yup!" he enthused, and stretched with a yawn. "Can I go now?"

Cumber was amazed; jumping through time always had certain side effects on those involved, and Cumber had learned to expect certain things - nausea, raised blood pressure, headaches...and none of them were there. None. It was as though Gokuu had never even been ill a day in his life.

Gokuu smiled and powered down, out of Super Saiyan mode. Well, perhaps _that_ had been the problem; Cumber had never inspected a Super Saiyan before. Nothing about Super Saiyan Gokuu was "normal;" his metabolism, ki-stability, heart rate - added up as they were SHOULD have produced one very charred and crispy Saiyan. Yet, here the man stood, unharmed and completely oblivious to the stir that he could cause in the medical community.

Gokuu grinned at him, not bothered much in the way of deep thoughts.

 _Then again,_ thought Cumber, eyeing him wryly, _perhaps it's just GOKUU._

"Can I go?" Gokuu repeated, and Cumber looked up at him fully and nodded.

"Yes," he answered, putting down Gokuu's chart. He sighed. "I wonder if Vejiita has this many anomalies," he wondered aloud, and Gokuu perked up.

"Vejiita?" asked Gokuu, all enthusiastic. "I can get him for you!" he promised, and veritably skipped out of the room, leaving Cumber to his own devices. Cumber blinked.

"Um...thanks," he said quietly to nobody and picked up the chart again. He studied it for a moment without really seeing it, thinking about all sorts of things. He had never met anybody like these people, these people who were presently on his ship and theoretically holding him captive. Never met anyone as pure as Gokuu - or as _GOOD_.

Cumber had no idea how to react in the face of such goodness.

Pondering the issue in his careful, methodical way, Cumber went back to studying the chart and waited for Vejiita.

* * *

Vejiita was presently in his daughter's bedroom, soothing Bra to sleep. He knelt by her bed, gently palming her hair back from her forehead as she dozed and displaying an intensity of affection he would never have shown were she fully awake.

His children. He had nearly lost his children to these... _people_. Had lost his son, for a time.

He hadn't been able to protect them.

Vejiita's natural inclination was to simply descend on the two remaining Kyuujinshu, tearing through the ship like a golden tornado and destroying every single trace that these people had ever existed. However, he did not; he had been advised that this was not practical. Practical, his ass. People did _not_ trifle with the family of Vejiita and walk away unharmed.

He checked on her respiration and ki level again; finally, Bra was asleep. It was quite a relief to know that. Maybe now he could get back to the business of plotting revenge. Sighing, he leaned back and contemplated his daughter.

She really did look just like her mother. It was, in fact, painful sitting here and looking at her; it merely served to remind him in one more implacable way that Bulma was gone forever.

Wasn't fair. It just... wasn't... fair.

A sudden attack of angst flooded his mind. He sat where he was, missing that woman who had been a part of his life for the past sixteen years, recalling the feel of her, the sound of her, her scent, her touch; time slipped by, unnoticed by him, and still he knelt and hovered in her memory.

The intercom buzzed and got back his attention.

Hell. He had lost a good five minutes just... reminiscing over that woman. This was not good. Not now. There was no _time_ for this sort of thing...

The intercom buzzed again, and, grumbling, Vejiita shook himself finally from his reverie to go see who had the nerve to bother him.

* * *

Gokuu went down the hall toward Bra's room, trying to find Vejiita. It was an educated guess to look there, really; since the doors were closed, he was unable to simply pick up traces of Vejiita's ki. So, he guessed, and whatever else could be said about Gokuu's notable lack of mental prowess, the fact remained that he was a very good guesser. He came up to Bra's door and hit the intercom button. A moment passed without response, so he hit it again.

"What?" came Vejiita's quiet but annoyed voice, and Gokuu smiled, pleased with his success.

"Ohayoo!" he announced, and Vejiita sighed dramatically.

"What do you want, Kakarotto?" he said, still just on the verge of whispering; Bra _was_ asleep, after all.

"Cumber wants to see you. He's doing tests on us to see if we were affected when we accidentally time jumped," Gokuu explained, absently scratching the back of his head.

"He can take his tests and shove them," Vejiita replied caustically, turning back to the room with an air of dismissal.

"It's important, Vejiita," Gokuu insisted, speaking a little more quietly than before. "If it does something bad to us or our kids, we need to know it _before_ we jump again."

Vejiita hesitated; he felt just fine - nothing wrong with _him,_ thank you very much - but if there were possible harm to his children...

"Fine," he snapped, and, switching off the intercom, opened the door and marched down the hall to see what Cumber wanted to do to him.

* * *

**Earth: 1**

On earth, Kuririn was feeling under-appreciated. Oh, he knew it was silly; after everything his friends had gone through to rescue him, it was verging on ungrateful for him to even think such a thing. Nevertheless - he felt like he was being ignored.

Perhaps it was because nobody was listening to a damned word he had to say.

"No, but I'm telling you - " he tried, and was again overridden.

"And in order to track their vessel, we're going to have to find their last trajectory so I can look for traces of their passing," Dr. Briefs explained, not even hearing Kuririn's voice. Kuririn was easy to miss.

"No, but - "

"We do not know where they are going," Piccolo interrupted gruffly. "But we do have the communicators that Bulma was working on. Could use those to track them?" Dr. Briefs and Kuririn both shook their heads.

"No, you see they're - " Kuririn started again.

"No, I'm afraid not," Dr. Briefs interrupted, this time breaking in to keep from hearing more mention of his daughter. "Just an open com signal is not enough to track them, because radio waves of any kind simply expand in space and keep going forever - they don't degrade and disappear the way they do on earth. I'm afraid I need something more solid."

"Well, we could always - "

"Perhaps if you had the specs for the material of their ship," Juuhachi-gou said quietly, and Kuririn threw his hands in the air and relegated them all to foolery. "This Junsei Aion is supposed to be unique, both on earth and in the universe at large."

"Perhaps," Dr. Briefs said thoughtfully, considering as he wisely rubbed his chin. "If I could calibrate the machinery to merely look for the predicted response of radar bouncing off that material. But I'm afraid without the direction they're headed in, it will still take a very long time."

"But what about the - " started Chaou-zu, and Kuririn had had enough.

"But they're coming back to EARTH!" he suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs, and everybody turned to look at him.

"What? You're certain?" demanded Piccolo, leaning in closer and scowling in true Piccoloian style.

Kuririn scowled back, feeling old and cranky and not in the mood for dealing with idiots. "Hell, yes," he said, and crossed his arms for emphasis.

"Well, why didn't you say so before?" Dr. Briefs said happily, and marched off with 18 to pick up the Junsei Aion's design specs so he could reprogram the radar to search for it. Kuririn sighed, brushing his whitened hair out of his eyes.

Yes, he was sure; he'd been held captive by these people, and since his escape was just about the last thing they'd expected, they had discussed their plans in front of him without reserve. They were coming back to earth, and then after they did that they were jumping back in time again; at least, that was what they'd said. This meant that if/when the Kyuujinshu did appear, the earth warriors would have a very limited chance to get to them before they jumped away.

Kuririn just wished that he knew why they had been talking about Dr. Gero.

* * *

**Alternate Earth: 1**

"Well, personally, I thought it looked better _before_ you changed it," Bulma's chipper voice came from the recording, and several people's laughter joined in. Everybody talked at once, fussy and content, as the recording played on; the small audio tape had captured the moments before a surprise birthday party for Trunks. They had just been discussing changing the color of the curtains; at least, so Muuri had surmised.

"They seemed so happy," he said quietly, shutting off the tape recorder and slipping in yet another tape. He had found a whole box full of them, and was going through, cassette by cassette, just to see what he would find. Morbid? Perhaps. Time-consuming? You betcha.

Muuri found one at the bottom of the box that looked a little... careworn. Actually, it rather looked as though somebody had used it for ki practice.

The casing was somewhat melted, but the basic shape remained the same and the roll of tape inside looked practically unharmed. So, curious to see if it would work, Muuri stuck it in the machine and pressed play.

Gasping breaths, the type one would take in between furtive hiding or crying, sounded through the speaker. Bulma started talking then, apparently continuing a previous monologue.

 _"...don't know about this one, either,"_ she said, quietly and with more than a touch of desperation. _"If the captain had any idea... but he doesn't. I made the other tape, just like he said, and he thinks that's enough if anybody else should come here."_

Muuri blinked and reflexively stopped the recording. What was this about? Other... tape? Frowning, he rewound the cassette and pressed play again. Bulma's voice continued.

 _"This is the second record I'm trying to leave,"_ Bulma said, sounding quiet and furtive. _"They haven't found the first one yet, and so far they don't know about this one, either. If the captain had any idea... but he doesn't. I made the other tape, just like he said, and he thinks that's enough if anybody else should come here. Well, I don't care. They can hardly do anything to me that they haven't done already, and they've been threatening to feed me to the Black anyway all along. So, I'm rebelling._

 _"Their damned ship is almost completely outfitted in my Junsei Aion,"_ Bulma said with disgust in her voice, and Muuri's eyes went wide. _"Ru Sa seems to be fairly happy with my work. He even dared... DARED... to suggest that I could go with them into space as they go look for Gero and his Black. Ha. Oh, that's good. At least I have some options available to me; I just haven't decided yet if I want to rig the ship to explode or just send them off to some alternate dimension somewhere to get trapped. God knows they deserve it. But I haven't been able to do anything yet; they're watching me so closely that I can't even go to the bathroom unguarded. Well, screw them all, I say. Nobody is going to come out on top of this except me, and it won't even matter at that point if I'm dead or not."_

Muuri's mouth was hanging wide open as he listened to this. The use of Ru Sa's name had confirmed his vague suspicion that the people Bulma was talking about were the same group who had come to Namek and kidnapped Muuri and his people. _Heavens,_ he thought. _Where have these people NOT been?!?_

Bulma's slightly strained voice lifted in an unstable giggle. _"Can you believe Cabbage actually dared to apologize to me?"_ she said, still tittering. _"To ME! After all the hell they've put me through! Oh, sure. I forgave him. Right. I'll just forgive him for coming into my home, tricking me, betraying me, using me - and turning me over to Ru Sa to play with. Sure. No problem."_

Muuri was thinking desperately, his mind spinning. Ru Sa and his group; their ship; Junsei Aion; he felt as though his overworked mind was on the very brink of revelation, but whatever it was simply would not come yet.

 _"At any rate, I'm glad that they've overlooked one major thing,"_ Bulma continued, sounding a bit more like herself now. _"The idiots only had me work on the outside of the vessel and the main, inner hallway. They don't seem to think it's important to refinish the insides of the rooms and the control panels with my perfect iron. These people want to be that stupid - so much the better. So much the easier to ruin them._

_"The nasty thing is, I agree with what they're doing. They want to go back in time and stop Gero from putting the Black down there. But in order to do it they don't care who they have to kill or what they have to break. Oh sure, they say they do - claim they don't want to mess up the time lines, whatever. Well, they certainly didn't seem to mind messing with me."_

Muuri closed his eyes for a moment, attempting to think. Back in time... stop the Black... the Prophecy... the eighth dragon ball...

His instinctive thought processes made a jump.

 _... the One?_ He shook his head, not sure where that idea came from, but not about to debate it. He turned up the volume and listened some more.

Bulma's voice changed considerably now as she continued; she sounded terrified.

 _"They still haven't been able to figure out what happened to Trunks,"_ she said in small, frightened tones. _"That thing that he's become - they've never seen anything like it, and I know I surely haven't. At least he stays outside of the Canopy. Although I have a feeling that he could crash right through it if he decided to, and he... just hasn't decided to yet."_

This got Muuri's attention again. Thing that... _Trunks_ had become? What in blazes...

 _"Fortunately,"_ said Bulma, and paused to swallow nervously, _"I think that he - that it - doesn't really think, exactly. I think this... Not-Trunks just sort of walks around and looks for things to destroy. I don't know. I just never want to see what my son has become again. Seeing him like that... like he had no soul... I... I just..."_ There was a long pause, and Bulma seemed to be taking time to collect herself. No, that wasn't right - she was listening.

Muuri leaned forward and strained; he could hear faint sounds in the background, sounding very much like footsteps and fumbling outside the door.

 _"Shit,"_ Bulma said quickly, and switched the recorder off. Muuri listened for a while, but there were no more sounds.

Now, he was thoroughly confused.

"Hey, Rory," he called, getting one of the Nameks' attention. "Get Dende in here. He needs to hear this." Rory nodded affirmatively and jogged outside to fetch Dende, who was still staring up at the Canopy-covered sky as though waiting for an epiphany. Well, it seemed that said epiphany was happening inside the building. Perhaps the kami could shed some light on this tape.

Feeling puzzled and extremely rushed, Muuri began scrambling through the box again for more tapes, hoping for further elucidation on this situation. He had the distinctly unpleasant feeling that he was going to run out of time.

* * *

**Space: 2**

Gokuu was downstairs in the lower level of the ship now, in the large room housing all the escape pods. They had told him that this was where Goten met his end.

Angry? Yes, he was angry. Vejiita, in fact, held nothing on Gokuu right now when it came to righteous anger. After all, Vejiita's children were still _alive._

Cumber had confessed quietly to Gokuu before his examination that Ru Sa had been responsible for his sons' deaths. Gokuu, however, at this point had not needed that confirmed; he had seen it in Ru Sa's eyes. Gokuu knew his priorities; some things needed to be taken care of first, and his boys had both died for _something._ He was not about to let their deaths be in vain merely because he couldn't wait to do some righteous smashing. So, he held back and resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to wreak vengeance.

It still puzzled him, though, as to what this was all about. Cumber had tried to explain it: the Black, Gero, time-jumping, and even about his own people, the Kyuujinshu - the Old Ones. But Gokuu was, after all, Gokuu, and most of it had slipped unnoticed out of his head. He really only understood a few main points.

Cumber's people had existed for thousands of years, ages upon ages. Most of them were the originals or immediate descendants thereof, and had tampered with their genetic codes to let them live as long as possible; as long, of course, as they fed.

Cumber had grown uncomfortable and refused to elucidate on that point.

Cumber's people - the Old Ones, the Kyuujinshu - had made the unpleasant discovery of the Black when deep out in space. They had seen it eating things, had promptly panicked, and flown for a while until they could get their time-travel machine working. And once it did, they jumped.

They had ended up in Mirai no Trunks' timeline - as it turned out, toward the end of that world. They had actually witnessed the Black explode from under the ground and cover the planet, and they had jumped again barely in time to escape being caught by it.

Here was where Gokuu became confused; he sat on a disassembled space pod and contemplated the area where Goten had fought his last, thinking about what Cumber had told him.

Apparently, the Kyuujinshu had decided that the Black had to be stopped at any cost, and so they did the logical thing; they decided to go back in time and stop it from ever getting loose. For some reason Gokuu didn't quite understand, they could not actually stop its release; so they decided, instead, to go back and stop Gero from imprisoning it in the first place.

Cumber had skipped around a lot then; apparently, things had happened during their travels at this point that he did not want to repeat. Gokuu could sense the guilt coming from him and didn't push for more detail.

Whatever they had done in that alternate timeline had not been effective, and they had tried to jump again. Somehow, though, they had missed - and ended up in Gokuu's timeline, far out in space, all navigational systems offline, nowhere near the planet earth and very much confused. If they had not found the remains of the planet Namek and the tell-tale metal scraps that said Capsule Corporation with it, they might not have figured out where they were at all. After a short period, they had determined what year this was and adjusted their plans accordingly. Trusting deception to help them attain their goal, they had flown to earth and appropriated Vejiita and his people, hoping that the Z-warriors' connection with the late Gero would provide them with the information they needed.

Unfortunately, they had not learned a damned thing.

And now here Gokuu was, in the hangar, alone and minus two children because of this mess. He could appreciate the goal - the Black (whatever _that_ was) was evil and evil must be stopped; this was a concept that Son Gokuu understood perfectly. But he had to wonder how things might had turned out differently if the Kyuujinshu had tried to look for help and relied on honesty rather than deception.

Sadly, the Kyuujinshu seemed not to have it much in their natures to be honest.

Gokuu stayed below and struggled with his bitterness and did not return to the upper levels for some time.

* * *

**Alternate Earth: 2**

Muuri had found a total of three tapes that seemed to be related to the time after Dende had left Mirai no Trunks' timeline. Bulma was very organized; by the light of the eighth dragonball, the Nameks were able to see the date of each recording - about a week apart each - scratched very lightly on the tops of the cassettes. Still frowning, Muuri put the first dated one back in and pressed play.

Bulma's voice, sounding somewhat dazed.

 _"We have been invaded by aliens,"_ she said, perfectly serious. _"I mean, I know, yes, we've had aliens before, but not like this. These people are bad."_

Dende sighed, knowing what was coming because he'd listened to it already and very sorrowful that Bulma and the others should have had to go through this. He was also glad that he had thought to send Moot out of the room before pressing _play_.

Bulma was sounding more dazed as she went on. _"They don't know that I'm keeping this record, and that's good. Because I think they'd hurt people to punish me if they found out. I know they would. They've done it before."_ She paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts.

 _"Okay,"_ she continued. _"Speaking for the record - they've been here for a while. Cabbage - Akeno Cabbage - was one of them. All along. And they've come out of hiding now because they have need of my Junsei Aion."_ Dende nodded once in understanding; he now understood that this material of Bulma's, which comprised the outermost layer of the Capsule Corporation, was only thing impervious to the deleterious effects of the Black. He was not at all surprised that the bad guys had wanted their ship outfitted likewise.

 _"They wanted me to do their whole ship in it,"_ Bulma continued, quietly and almost completely expressionless. _"I said no. So they killed Oolong._ " Here she paused for a moment again, as though each complete, coherent thought required some great deal of preparation; the Nameks waited patiently.

 _"I... kind of knew they were really bad then,"_ she said, and managed a very bitter chuckle, _"so I still said no. They threatened Mr. Satan then and - um."_ She swallowed. _"Trunks has been missing for a week already. He wasn't here to stop them. At least I can say that Mr. Satan doesn't really miss his legs because at least they didn't work any more."_ She was silent again for a moment, taking deep and careful breaths. Control _must_ be maintained, that was all that mattered; or so she had felt at the time.

 _"I still wouldn't say yes, so they locked me up and tried to figure it out themselves. But they couldn't do it. So then they tried another technique."_ She was silent again for a long while, and when she continued, her voice was more carefully expressionless than it had been thus far.

 _"After their captain raped me, I decided that it might be a good idea to do what they said."_ She finally choked - but only a little bit. _"That bastard... he... did things to me... I couldn't handle it. So, I said yes. And he hasn't touched me since."_

Another silence, this one punctuated by the muffled, clacking sounds of the small tape recorder being shifted from one hand to the other.

_"So I don't know where this is going to lead, exactly. Cabbage is... hovering now. Like he feels bad for me, or something. I hate him. But I'm going to fix their damned ship for them so well that not even the Black will be able to harm it."_

And suddenly, her tone changed. Suddenly, it became virile, furious; alive, intelligent. Suddenly, she became an angel of vengeance.

 _"They will pay,"_ she hissed with such a poisonous tone that even though Dende had known she was going to do it, he still jumped. _"I will get them,"_ she said coldly, and the look on her face could almost be heard in her tone. _"They will never get away with this."_ Then she shut off the recorder; and Muuri did the same.

"Wow," Dende said again, shaking his head slowly and taking it in. So far, he and Muuri had begun to figure out what these strange creatures had been doing; to a certain extent, they even knew why. Dende now knew almost everything he needed to know about the Black and the Kyuujinshu.

He wished sadly that he could un-know things. It would make it easier to sleep at night.

"Next tape," he hoarsely requested, and Muuri, beyond answering, nodded once and slipped in the second cassette.

* * *

**Earth: 2**

Dr. Briefs was very surprised to find that although he was unable to locate the Kyuujinshu's ship, he was able to track where they had been; this was surprising because they had not been traveling in this dimension, and so it was rather odd that he could trace them at all.

The Junsei Aion ship had gone some distance from earth, and then it had... well, it had torn straight through the dimensional wall and gone somewhere else. However, by some random stab of fortune, Dr. Briefs had created his radar device to be much more powerful than he had originally planned. Not only did it pick up the mere presence or lack thereof of Junsei Aion; it also picked up these odd... gaps.

The bad guys' ship had made _holes_. In the very fabric of the walls of space and time. What they were or where they came from he had no idea, but Dr. Briefs did not panic; not apocalyptically inclined, he did not immediately assume these things to be bad. On the contrary; he became so fascinated by them that for a long while he forgot about anything else.

He did not remember to be frightened until the Black came. As it happened, he chanced to be studying one of those holes when the Black slid into it. His eyes went wide as mass after mass began to disappear off the screen of his radar.

"Hey! Somebody!" He called, raising his voice for possibly the first time in his life. "Help!"

* * *

**Alternate Earth: 3**

Bulma's third tape had as little recorded on it as the others had, and just as important - but the Nameks did not get to hear it. Several confusing and sudden somethings happened first that prevented them from doing so.

Muuri had just put the third tape in when from behind him came shouts and the sound of energy blasts.

"What?!" cried Dende. The young Namek jumped to his feet, imagining aliens, monsters, the Black, demons...

And was confronted with a humanoid in a space suit.

The character pointed its gun right in Dende's face and spoke.

"Who are you?" the vaguely female voice sounded from inside the suit. "How did you get here, and what do you want?"

Dende would have tried to answer her questions - a gun in one's face is always conducive to making one cooperative - except that he thought that he recognized her voice.

"... Bulma?" he asked, tone high and uncertain.

The carrier of the gun lowered her weapon a smidgen. "What... did you call me?" she asked, and leaned forward to look at Dende more carefully. " _Dende_?!?" she asked in disbelief and lowered her gun completely. "You can _breathe_?"

"Well... I... y... of course we can! You can't?" Dende was too much in shock over this development to be able to think straight. Logical questions simply were not coming to mind.

Bulma - if that's who it was - hesitated for a moment; and then, putting her gun and backpack down, she reached up and slowly twisted off the large helmet.

It was indeed Bulma.

She looked around, slightly sweaty hair plastered to her head, her expression full of wonder. She took a deep breath and held it for a long moment. "I can _breathe_ ," she said, and looked at Dende with joy. "I can BREATHE!" she repeated, and hopped up and down for emphasis - although not very high because of the bulkiness of her suit.

"Um... yes," admitted Dende, not knowing why he wasn't supposed to be able to breathe and completely unsure as to what to do next.

"You don't understand," Bulma said, still bouncing on her toes excitedly. "There's no... you... you don't understand." Bulma slapped her hand to the side of her head, looking confused.

"Oi," she explained, still looking with wide eyes at Dende. "It's been so long since I spoke to anybody that I've almost forgotten how to do it. Well, not quite," she babbled, taking a more relaxed posture and casually swinging her helmet by her side. "I mean, you could never _really_ forget how to talk to people, could you? Maybe if you were hit on the head, or something, but that _didn't_ happen to me, so I really couldn't have forgotten already, I've just gotten used to not putting all my thoughts into coherent sentences. And I'm babbling at you and I _know_ that I am, and I'm _so_ sorry, but it's been so long since I've even seen another living being and I... and I..." And Bulma abruptly burst into tears.

Now, Dende REALLY didn't know what to do.

Reep solved the problem by hopping up and speaking.

"Bulma the Wise," he announced with joy, and Bulma stopped crying and looked at him.

"What the HELL?!?" she asked, staring at the creature.

"Yes," agreed Dende, and held his head. It seemed that things were just not going to get any simpler ever again.


	24. Heading For Collision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I call this one the Gohan Surprise.

Everything seemed to be coming together. On earth, Kuririn and the others scrambled to prepare for the expected arrival of the Kyuujinshu; in space and in the original timeline, Cumber and the Saiya-jin prepped themselves and their ship to jump into Mirai no Trunks' world to see what they could see; and Ru Sa just plotted evil things in general for everybody.

Unfortunately, all plots and plans were interrupted by the coming of the Black.

It had by this point destroyed most of the alternate timelines already - first by simply drifting through and reducing all life and light to nothing and leaving empty, blackened husks in place of worlds; and second, by going _back_ through these same universes, affected and mutated by the holes the Kyuujinshu's ship had made, and eliminating even those empty husks of worlds remaining. It was already in Gokuu's regular timeline. Dr. Briefs had seen it, as had Kaiou sama - but until now, none of the mutated Black had reached this solar system or the planet Earth.

When it did, it changed everything.

* * *

Kaiou sama was beyond pacing. Pacing would do him no good at all, serving only to make his tired, sore feet even more tired and sore than they already were. Similarly, griping would do no good; in fact, none of his usual stress-relieving options were available to him. He was helpless to do anything but stand around and watch - and that was possibly the least calming thing he could have done.

He stood by, chagrined, while world after world popped out of existence and millions upon millions of souls ceased to _be_ at all - erased as though they had never been. It almost would have been better if they had all died; at least then they would still _exist_. Gero had had no idea what he had been loosing on the world when he'd taken a sample of the Black out of Hell. Or who knew, maybe he _had_ known; he might have been just crazy enough to consider and enjoy the consequences.

Kaiou sama stood all alone in the field, on the verge of tears and unable even to check up on Gokuu to see what was going on. After all, wherever Gokuu was, it was not here and now; he was either in some other timeline someplace, or dead, and Kaiou sama had no way of contacting him.

Bulma came up and stood behind him, silent and concerned for the heart-pained Kaiou. He had considered so much in this galaxy to be his responsibility, and now all these things were happening that were completely out of his control. It was almost too much for him to bear.

"It's not your fault," she said, keeping her tone even and sincere. At least she could try to help him feel better, even if any other help was out of her reach. Kaiou sama turned to look at her somberly.

"I never thought it was," he replied, using much the same tone as she. They looked at one another for a moment, sharing some nameless, deep grief for the loss of everything there was, and that's when Goten had his moment of brilliance.

Goten, as a general rule, was not the brightest bulb in the box. However, he was far from stupid, and as he sat playing simple games with Bubbles, a thought occurred to him. Leaving Bubbles to make his own entertainment (at which said ape was quite proficient), Goten made his way over to Kaioushin to ask him a question.

"Kaioushin sama?" he said, finally remembering his manners that his mother had spent mostly fruitless hours teaching him; at least he had them when it counted.

"Yes, Goten?" Kaioushin replied in his soft voice, grateful for a bit of distraction from the obliteration of the universe around him. "What do you want?"

"Is Gohan dead?" the boy asked, and Kaioushin's brow knit ever so slightly.

"Dead?" he replied, sitting forward and away from the tree against which he had been leaning. "Um," he said, not entirely sure as to the point of this line of questioning. "I hadn't really though about it. Well, he's _here_ \- although he doesn't have a halo so I suppose he's not. I guess when Rou Kaioushin healed him, he actually healed his body as well. Yes, he's alive. Why do you ask this?"

"Then why is he still here?" asked Goten, and Kaioushin had a momentary and uncharacteristic moment of shock.

"I don't know," he replied with wonder and stared blankly at Goten. The shock came because he realized that although Gohan had been here almost since the beginning of this entire mess, nobody had actually thought about the fact that he was, apparently, alive - nor had anybody thought to take advantage of the fact that he was. For heaven's sake, the boy had already been to earth via teleportation to visit his ailing mother - and nobody had thought to tell him that he didn't have to leave her.

Feeling callused and inconsiderate, he made his way toward the kitchen, determined to tell Gohan that he could go home. At least the young man could spend his time with Chi Chi rather than waste it up here, waiting for the end.

Although actually, if Gohan were really _alive_ , then that presented an entirely new echelon of possibilities, didn't it? Indeed it did. He opened the door and walked in, looking determined.

Goten shrugged and went back to playing with Bubbles. He hadn't really received an answer to his second question, but that was all right. He was a boy who could live without answers.

Two minutes later, Gohan came storming out of the kitchen and made a beeline for the Kaiou, his expression set and serious.

"I want you to send me to Mirai no Trunks' world," he demanded out of the blue, and Kaiou sama blinked at him.

"What? Have you gone mad?" he asked, staring at Gohan as if convinced that he had. "You're DEAD. You CAN'T go there - and even if you could, you wouldn't be able to do any good. You'd just die there, like everybody else."

Gohan was still new to having his tail again, and didn't know how to control it properly; it kept giving away his true feelings. At the moment, it was very puffed up and lashing back and forth agitatedly. "I am going," he said. "And I am alive, and I am going to do some good. Even if the only thing I can do is die, I am going to go." He leaned forward, his tail momentarily forming a straight rod behind him, as though mimicking an exclamation point. "You cannot stop me," he said, and leaned back again. "Either you send me or Kaioushin sends me, or worse comes to worse you send me to the Capsule Corporation and I try to get Dr. Briefs to send me. Either way, I'm going."

Kaiou sama did not hear half of what Gohan said. "You're... alive?" he asked with slowly dawning realization and looked above Gohan's head for the tell-tale halo.

To the end of his days, the Kaiou of the Northern galaxy could not figure out how it was that he and everybody else had not observed that Gohan did not have one.

"You're ALIVE!" he said, and flung himself at the boy as if to hug him in joy.

"SEND me," Gohan insisted, all of his hero instincts flaring. Even if he did not get to see Videl and Pan again... at least he would have died so THEY could live. Nothing else really mattered.

"Well I can't send you directly there," he said, his brain whirring into action as though trying to make up for days of depressed stupor.

"Then send me to earth," said Gohan, "and I'll see what I can do there."

Kaiou sama nodded. "Right," he said, and began to concentrate.

* * *

Piccolo was in the lab watching Dr. Briefs' radar with stoic confusion when the shouts came. People outside were calling Gohan's name quite happily over and over again for no reason he could see, and this only served to remind the grieved Namek that the boy was gone forever. He scowled at their rudeness and continued studying the instruments.

And then, the impossible.

"Piccolo-san," came Gohan's voice in the doorway, and Piccolo turned slowly with an expression of disbelief on his face that quickly melted into one of surprised joy so intense no painter could ever capture it.

Perhaps their reunion is better imagined than described.

* * *

It took Dr. Briefs exactly seventeen hours to figure out Bulma's rudimentary blueprints for a time/dimensional travel machine and create one by tinkering with an old refrigerator. For all their faults, the Briefs family did not lack imagination. And so, at the end of that time, Gohan went to meet his destiny - to Mirai no Trunks' desiccated world.

* * *

**Alternate Earth**

He could be seen, and he could be heard, but he could neither see nor hear - at least, not in the normal sense. And that was okay. Kuro Trunks could move and touch, and that was all that mattered.

What Mirai no Trunks had become walked his routine path around the outside of the Canopy quite calmly, not actively looking for a way in but naturally ready to take one if he found it. He was the Black in bodily form - there was no thought involved, no malice, and certainly nothing resembling actual evil - but that did not matter. He walked, aware of objects and living things in a way that Trunks himself never had been, and he touched; and as he touched, things ceased to exist. Already, there was nothing left outside the Canopy within walking distance beyond the ground on which he walked.

What had happened to Trunks was not a mistake.

The Black, in its original and intended form, dwelt below in some of the darker Hells and dealt with demons; with those evil, blackened beings that no amount of cleansing could cure, that would stay and be punished for all eternity unless something (or someone) released them - which did happen, once in a long while. The Black was merely part of that punishment.

In that place, the Black was contained quite easily by the nature of the walls of the spiritual prison, and what it did was float around - the same way it did in the living universe - and touch things. When it touched them, they experienced unspeakable agony, and for a time, parts of their spirit-bodies ceased to exist. However, in an almost Greek-style chastisement, those parts of their bodies would simply reform, and ready to be tortured again the next time such an occasion arose. It was not easy to avoid the Black; not only was there no light to differentiate it from the normal spirit-world murkiness of the lower hells, but it also it had a few tricks that it had been designed to play.

One of those tricks was to take over the bodies of other individuals and use them, mindlessly, like avatars of a sort for its penalizing function. It would approach a being and indwell them, possessing them for lack of a better term, and for a time that particular demon-being, in impossible pain, walked around and just... touched others, giving them the same pain it was experiencing. There was no way to combat it, and no way to defend against it. The Black-infested being was just as strong as the demon naturally had been in life, and whenever this type of possession happened, suffering would inevitably follow. Then after a while - and for no obvious reason - the Black would simply leave its chosen spirit body. The demons involved would recover, and the cycle would begin again.

Horrible, yes - and absolutely deserved. Only beings of the most malevolent kind had ever been consigned to that place, and in it, the Black worked quite well and did no lasting harm.

The problem was, it had never been meant to be loosed on the living world.

Dr. Gero had found a spell that was meant, in evil and occultic times past, to release some of those said demons. Armageddon was supposed to result, ultimate destruction of the everything, etc. and so forth.

Dr. Gero, however, had not wanted to do that. He rather preferred to destroy mankind and keep the world for himself, and so he had come up with an alternative use. Never one to waste things, he had used the spell, opened the door to the lower hells, and simply peeked around.

When he discovered the Black, he thought that all his problems had been solved.

Through a bizarre stroke of luck, he had found that his specially made glass did not react adversely to the Black - that, in fact, it made it possible to contain. So, dreaming wreaked havoc and merciless vengeance upon all of mankind, he had stolen some of the Black and tucked it away in his lab the Deeper for later use.

Of course, after Android 17 had killed him, all such plans were abruptly and for obvious reasons abandoned.

So, the Black had sat down there, unknown, unchanging, not impatient because it was neither alive nor aware - and the first time around had been released in a simple mistakenly overpowered training exercise of Mirai no Trunks' one bright day.

The Kyuujinshu, living in an alternate universe very connected with that one, had seen the results and tried to go back in time to stop it. Unfortunately, they only succeeded in releasing it sooner - and creating yet another time-line, this one also with the Black moving inexorably through it.

And the Black, not knowing where it was nor caring that everything here was different, simply did what it had been made to do - ate things, and looked for one to possess. None were strong enough... until it found Mirai no Trunks.

There was something odd about the combination of human and Saiyan that made Trunks the perfect host for the Black; perfect enough so that it had not abandoned his body yet, although it had certainly been there considerably longer than it had ever infested the spirit-body of a demon.

Trunks had never known what was coming - and the agony that he was now constantly his world was something that would be obscene to describe. However, the fact remained that his Black-possessed body walked, and touched, and was more dangerous in this form than he had ever been in his life, although there was no conscious intent of destruction involved. He just instinctively looked for a way into the Canopy the same way water searches for its lowest level.

Things might have gone on this way indefinitely if the Z-warriors had not crashed the ship. Unfortunately, accidents happen - and to this particular group of heroes, they happened quite a lot.

* * *

Bra woke up with the most pervading feeling of danger she had ever had in her life. This was not to say there was any particular reason for the sensation; in fact, it was not until much later that she realized the unintentional warning had come from Ru Sa, through the very tenuous connection that she had established with him. Either way, it little mattered. Sliding out of her bed, she padded out the door and went to find her papa.

She padded into the main bridge only to find everybody gathered there - apparently, they were about to take off.

Just looking at Ru Sa gave her the shivers.

"Papa," she said quietly, walking up beside Vejiita and looking up into his face.

Vejiita, for his part, was presently watching Gokuu intently and did not feel like paying attention to his daughter. "Not now, Bra," he said, and resumed Gokuu-watching.

Gokuu was fascinating right now; a true study in Saiya-jin self control, if there ever was one. It was clear as ice that he wanted to kill Ru Sa, and yet he restrained himself from even so much as gesturing at him. The result was a slightly flushed and exceedingly tense Gokuu. Vejiita watched him with the same kind of amused observation he might give to a champagne bottle that was about to explode.

"Papa," Bra said again, this time tugging on Vejiita's arm to get his attention.

"Bra, what IS it?" he snapped, bending down slightly to hear her better but keeping his eyes on the steaming Kakarotto.

"Ru Sa's planning something bad," she said, trying to pitch her voice low enough so the captain would not hear.

The captain did, but he was hardly upset about it. He chuckled dryly and continued pressed buttons.

"Bad? What do you mean, bad?" Vejiita asked, now glaring at Ru Sa's back while he spoke to her.

"I don't know - bad," she elucidated, her small mouth compressed in a pout. "He's just going to do something bad. I know so."

Vejiita turned to look at his daughter. Well, she _had_ been right before, but...

Aw, to hell with it.

"Captain," he said evenly, addressing Ru Sa's back. "What are you doing?"

Ru Sa snorted, not even bothering to turn around, and said, "Time-jumping. I thought that was what you wanted... my _lord_ ," he added spitefully.

Vejiita bristled but did not rise to the bait. "Then you wouldn't mind if Cumber dropped what he was doing and came over to watch you," he said casually, and signaled with his hand for Bra to go fetch Cumber. Being the smart girl that she was and well used to her father by now, she immediately trotted out of the room and down the hall to find him.

Ru Sa merely growled in response - as was expected of him - and continued working. Cumber would be an annoyance, but would hardly affect the outcome; the trap that was set had nothing to do with Ru Sa's present behavior. Ah - if only Bulma had known that her carefully devised traps would be sprung on her precious Vejiita and family, then she probably would not have put them up to begin with. Oh, well. Such were the dangers of life.

* * *

Bulma sat with several Nameks around a campfire, hungrily tearing into one of the sealed, sterilized packages of dried food she had hidden around the complex for later consumption. She herself had run out of food two days before when Black Trunks - that is, Kuro Trunks - had found her food store and touched it. Since then, she had been trekking back here at a wild pace, trying to get back before she fell over from hunger or Trunks caught up with her.

And now, she ate like a mad wolf.

"So what happened after Trunks left?" Dende asked, wanting to get the whole story from her and dimly amazed at the way she was putting food away.

"Mm," she said, and swallowed quickly. Dende could almost see the large food-clump moving down her throat. "Well, he didn't come back - like I said. And a couple of days after that there were rumors about him walking around, looking funny... but I didn't even have time to believe those things. The Capsule Corporation was almost completely redone in Junsei Aion, and the Canopy was nearly finished. In the end, I had to see him myself before I would believe that he was still alive." She burped politely and resumed tearing chucks out of the freeze-dried food, now looking at it mournfully. "Of course," she continued, "he WASN'T alive. Not at all. I think maybe he is in there - somewhere - but... I can't be sure." She shrugged and continued eating.

"No, no, of course not," agreed Dende, not liking to think what it meant if Trunks - the real Trunks - were still trapped inside of that somehow. That would be... awful. Truly.

Murri watched Bulma with something like amused curiosity; this expression did not quite manage to hide the keen wariness in his eyes. Bulma watched him back.

"I'm not going to bite you," she announced around a mouth of crusty bread, and continued chewing.

"How did you get away from the Kyuujinshu?" Muuri asked, not changing his expression or body language at all.

"They let me go," she said with a shrug. "They had no more use for me, and pretty much figured that if I wanted to stay here and die, then I could DO that. No skin off their backs." She took a rather large bite out of some unrecognizable, withered fruit and chewed contentedly. There was absolutely no sign of the nearly broken and/or insane woman they had heard on the tapes not two hours before.

"What about those tapes?" Dende asked, handing her another small packet of food. She took it without hesitation.

"What about them?" she replied, ripping the sealed aluminum top off the container and chowing down without delay.

"Well... those things that you said happened. Did they?" Dende had to be delicate. Some of the others were here, now.

"Yes," she said simply, and buried her chopsticks in rice. She paused for a moment. "I got over it," she added, and continued to eat.

"You didn't sound over it," added Murri, still watching her very, very carefully.

"Well, of COURSE not, moron," she snapped, pausing in her eating to scold the elder Namek. "It had JUST HAPPENED. It's been well over a month since then, and I've had better things to do than sit around and brood over it. And besides, I got my revenge. Do you have any other stupid questions for me?"

"Yes," said Dende, shifting to lean on his other hand - there were no chairs left, as anything remotely flammable had been broken up and piled for future burning. "What revenge are you talking about?"

"I destroyed their ship," she said casually, and burped again. "Or at least, it will be destroyed. Excuse me." She continued eating.

"How so?" asked Murri, idly clearing away some of the empty food packs.

"I reconfigured their quantum drive to feed the ions back into itself, reversing the entire system's flux and causing a ship wide explosion. It ought to happen on the third time-jump from when I activated the program."

"So their ship is going to explode? On the third jump from when they left here?"

"Yes. Unless Ru Sa puts a stop to it." She finally pushed the remaining trays away from herself, content.

"Ru Sa... why would he know? Did you tell him?" asked Muuri, perhaps a touch more caustically than he'd intended.

The look Bulma gave him could have withered a cactus. "NO, I did not TELL him, you green-skinned FREAK," she replied, sounding more than a little offended - although there was a flush in her cheeks. "He has a limited psychic connection with me. Believe me, I'm not thrilled about it, either. He MIGHT have found out about what I was doing - and if he did, I'm sure he'd put a stop to it. Hopefully, however, he didn't. He was pretty busy thinking about other things."

"Was he, now," said Murri, and with no warning stood and walked out the door.

"Hmph," said Bulma after he left. "He's turned out to be a bit nasty. I'm going to sleep now." And with that, she simply lay down on the floor and went to sleep. Apparently, the thought of going back to rest in those dead, lifeless bedrooms alone was less appealing to her than it had been to Dende.

Dende, for his part, was not happy. The ship might blow up? Oh, but this was bad - they had already decided that the only feasible way for "The One" (whomever THAT turned out to be) to come there was via the Kyuujinshu's ship. But if the ship was to blow up...

Dende sighed. Obviously, he had been mistaken. The One wouldn't be coming by the ship. Then how else could this person possibly -

There were shouts outside. Again. For the second time today, Dende raced out the door to see what all the commotion was about.

There was a machine parked in front of the Capsule Corporation.

Smoking slightly, it looked as though it had been put together using spare refrigerator parts and lots of sticky tac. This was not far from the truth, although, fortunately for all concerned, Dr. Briefs had used something considerably more durable than sticky tac to hold it all together. The large door swung upward, and Gohan - adult Gohan, with a tail - stepped calmly out.

"What can I do to help?" he announced, and Dende felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. Too much reality switching in one day would do that.

He was about to answer when Gohan had his own moment of unreality. Responding to the cries outside, Bulma had exited the Capsule Corporation and walked up behind Dende. The two faced each other, knowing one another's counterparts from another time but never meeting face to face.

"Oh, dear kami," said Gohan, and Dende laughed once.

"Well put," he said, and recovered from his shock. He was beginning to get good at that.

"Almost all here!" cried Reep from somewhere to his left, and Dende could only nod. They were almost all here. And then -

Well, whatever would be would be. And that was really all there was to understand.

* * *

Ru Sa was, in point of fact, not very happy. Draining Gohan had severely damaged his regenerative capabilities, and his last shot was not lasting nearly as long as it should. For heaven's sake, it had only been a couple of days...

He wiped the sweat from his brow and continued working. At least he would have the pleasure of watching the Saiyans' faces when they realized they were trapped - when he got them to their destination and then moved aside while Bulma's trigger went into effect. He had known about it, of course, and had made only one adjustment: the explosion would be a delayed reaction, happening some ten minutes after the third and final jump.

Why had he not simply disbanded the mechanism altogether? If he had been asked that question two days ago, he would not have been able to answer. It was the same flash of instinct that had showed him Bra's grown-up form; he KNEW that he was going to need this trap for something.

Strangely enough, he was not worried about being trapped in Mirai no Trunks' world along with the Saiyans. Why? Well, he didn't know that yet - but he was fairly sure the answer would present itself upon arrival. He would take it - whatever it was - and leave those fools there, so Kuro Black or starvation could take them out, and go his merry way back to the original timeline. He had already surreptitiously recorded its location on a small, round disc, which he now had in his waist pack.

All this was, of course, assuming that he lived that long - he would have to drain SOMEbody before he took off or face possibly melting on the way there.

Cumber was hovering over his shoulder now, as per Vejiita's instructions, watching his captain warily for any sign of betrayal. Well. He could DO that. It wouldn't make any difference now.

Breathing strained, Ru Sa pressed the final few buttons, and the ship immediately jolted into the streams of time, jumping through space and dimensional boundaries, and back to Mirai no Trunks' world.


	25. Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Explosions.
> 
> And we're not even at the climax yet.

**Earth**

The Black was already in the universe that Gokuu liked to call home. It had already made its way past the old Planet Namek, and was in fact very close right now to the Milky Way. Kaiou-sama and Kaioushin had seen it, as had Dr. Briefs and the rest of his crew on earth; as of yet, however, nobody knew what to do about it.

That changed when it actually entered this solar system.

Everyone on earth could feel it coming; Kuririn, Piccolo, Tenshinhan - all had been trained long ago to be aware of power and its approach to their planet. Well, this was power, and it was coming far too quickly to be withstood.

Piccolo sat on one of his meditation mountain tops, staring at the sky. He was absolutely in awe at the extent of the force he felt heading toward the planet - and he was also absolutely helpless to stop it. Piccolo sighed once and looked at the mountains around him instead.

"Hurry, Gohan," he said softly to himself, and continued his solitary watch.

* * *

**Alternate Earth**

Bulma looked at the Prophecy again and sighed. It was odd, but for some reason, parts of it seemed to almost ring a bell in her mind. Well, take this for an example - "Ice with fire's heart, flame never still - twice perished, thrice cherished - strong, the untapped will."

Well, for no reason at all that made her think of Vejiita. In a way it _did_ fit - he was certainly all passion, although, coldly, he never let any of the "weaker" emotions show. And he HAD died twice - at least, in the "other" timeline. And he was thrice cherished; Gohan had told her that he had another child by her - well, by her counterpart - and so that made three. Herself, Trunks, and the daughter.

Good Kami; Vejiita with a DAUGHTER. Bulma couldn't picture it, no matter how hard she tried. However, if Gohan were correct about them all coming here, then she would be able to picture it quite soon. She was going to SEE it, in fact, in the flesh. To see Vejiita again. To see the daughter she never had.

For a moment, Bulma's entire body shuddered almost violently, and she put the prophecy down very quickly. She was going to start thinking nonsense if she kept this up, and nonsense was not good for practical action. With an effort of will, she lay back on the floor and tried to stop thinking about it at all.

Gohan sat across from her, muscles tense and expression somber.

"May I see that?" he asked, holding out his hand for the prophecy.

"Of course," she said, and handed the sheet of paper to him. It was beyond strange to see Gohan again, especially this Gohan, well adjusted, stronger than the one she had known and with a TAIL.

He perused the paper for a moment, looking thoughtful and intelligent. Well, he _would_ ; his mother had meant to make him into a scholar, and Bulma would be damned if _that_ hadn't happened in the other timeline.

"You know, that's weird," he said, eyeing the hand-scribbled page carefully. "Part of this reminds me of 'tousan."

"Of your father?" Bulma asked, pushing herself up to a sitting position.

"Yes," Gohan answered. "Of Gokuu. See, listen: 'Pure of heart, and pure of will; making sleep and slumbers still. Slumber not, to 'venge, to die; rage is pure as love is high.' I... I don't know WHY it does, exactly..."

"Well, that pure of heart thing is a given," Bulma said a bit dryly, regaining minimal interest in the script and lying back down again.

"Yes, it does _here_ \- but not necessarily the whole way through. See, this is later: 'Half is light that rages, only pure of heart be sufficient then to break apart the Beginning of End; whole, then, must move to make whole the part.' That doesn't feel like my father at all."

"Hell, this doesn't really feel like _anybody_ ," Bulma replied casually, and rolled over on her side to face him. "We've just been staring at each other and this thing for too long."

"If you say so," said Gohan doubtfully, and kept reading. "How are they going to get in here, I wonder," he said, just thinking out loud and not really looking for an answer.

"How is who going to get in where?" replied Bulma, sitting up again. Really, at this rate she was going to have fabulous abs.

"Otousan and the others," Gohan replied, only glancing up at her. "I mean, the Canopy is up there, and..."

"Oh, THAT'S not going to be a problem," Bulma replied, and grinned proudly.

"What?" said Gohan, putting the paper down and looking her in the eye. "You mean there's a door, or something?"

Bulma laughed. "Of COURSE there's something, you idiot," she said congenially. "What, you really think we'd be stupid enough to trap ourselves in here with no way out? Not to mention ensuring that anybody else who managed to escape the Black and come here for shelter _couldn't_ get in? _I_ was in charge of designing this thing. Of course there's a way in and out. Two of them, actually."

"Two?" repeated Gohan, still surprised. "What are they? And is that how the Black got in here anyway to kill everybody in Satan City?"

Bulma sighed - she didn't feel like going into great detail just now. "The first is a small crawl hole that leads underneath and outside the canopy; it's sealed with a door made of Junsei Aion, so the Black can't get through it - it has to be opened from the inside. The second is a lot bigger - and..." she stopped. "Oh, HELL," she said, and climbed to her feet. She peered out the doorway at the cracks in the Canopy, which were very visible from here. "Oh... oh, no..." she said.

"What? What is it?" asked Gohan, concerned for obvious reasons.

"Those cracks... the canopy won't be able to stand the vibrations of the motors."

"Motors?"

"Yes, motors," she snapped, glaring at the ground now. "The canopy was built in two halves - quarter-circles. They meet, seamlessly, in the exact center of the 'sky' above us, and they both rest on rotary motors that I designed using junsei-aion coated materials, buried deep within the earth. When we needed to let in something big, like an airplane, or a helicopter, or something, we could turn on the motors and part the Canopy right down the center. Unfortunately, when the Kyuujinshu's ship left, we were trying to trap it in - and we closed the canopy right on it. It didn't break, but that's where the cracks came from." She leaned against the doorframe, unhappy. "Ru Sa has the command codes to open it again - they'll get in, if they're coming. But I don't think it can withstand the stress of opening and closing again. It'll break." She turned to face Gohan, very concerned. "And then my son is going to walk right in."

They looked long and hard at each other, but the only possible response to this was silence.

* * *

The ship jolted into Mirai no Trunks' reality some distance from earth - far enough away that it wouldn't be immediately pulled in by the planet's gravity field and damaged. Ru Sa was a good pilot when he put his mind to it.

Of course at the present moment, he was also a dying pilot.

"Cumber," he said, his breath already coming in ragged gasps. "I... I need to get into the lab and get another shot. I think I'm dying."

"That's nice," said Cumber, and was immediately unable to believe that he had said it. Such caustic comments were not really like him. He sighed. "I'll see what I can do," he said, and turned to Vejiita.

"No," said Vejiita, leaving no room for discussion.

"But he's..."

"I said no," Vejiita repeated, in a position of authority and rather enjoying it. "He can melt all over the floor, for all I care," he elaborated, and smirked his very best smirk.

"I think maybe we should give him what he needs for now," said Gokuu, and all eyes turned to him.

"You think we should WHAT?!?" Vejiita demanded; he had expected Gokuu, of all people, to be on his side on this one.

"Well, he IS the only one who knows how to fly the ship," Gokuu said, shrugging and trying to look objective. Vejiita stared at him.

"Cumber can learn how to do it," Vejiita argued, but both Cumber and Trunks shook their heads.

"It's far too complex," said Cumber glancing at the control board. "That's why we were so specialized when we assigned people to do different things. I can handle engine repair, but I can't fly the ship. Ru Sa is the other way around."

"Are you suggesting," said Vejiita, trying to keep his tone even, "that we ensure that this BEAST be allowed to go on living?" He turned to Gokuu. "Kakarotto, he KILLED your SONS."

That had the desired effect. For a moment, it looked as though Gokuu were actually going to attack Ru Sa. And then in typical, stubborn, Kakarotto style, he calmed.

"Yes, he did," he said, leaning back against the back of the captain's chair. "And he's going to pay for that. But not right now."

Ru Sa looked back and forth between the arguers, and then, obscurely, glanced at the time on his scouter. They had eight minutes left before the damned ship was going to blow up, and these _idiots_ were busy discussing whether _he_ should live or die....

Well, to hell with _this_.

"I've programmed the ship to arrive in five minutes' time," he broke in, not flinching at all under the stares of the men who turned to look at him. "But I didn't program it to go back, and I'm not going to, nor am I going to teach anybody a damned thing. Let me live, or nobody goes home. Is that clear?" He didn't bother to mention the Canopy and the code to open it - that was already programmed into the ship's communication device and taken care of.

For a moment, it really looked as though all three of them were going to attack him. Which was not good; in his present, weakened state, he would barely have been able to hold Bra off, much less two angered Saiya-jin and a Kyuujinshu.

 _And a partridge in a pear tree..._ seemed to echo bizarrely in his head, and he had a frightening moment of instability. Random memories and thoughts were popping up now, spinning - and with no warning at all, his knees simply stopped functioning. He was only able to remain upright by grabbing onto the control panel.

Kami, this was bad. Another few minutes and he would start hallucinating; another hour after that, and he would die.

He had the presence of mind to glance at the time again. Well, none of it mattered anyway, because in another seven minutes, the ship was going to blow up and they would ALL be dead. Damn, this was cutting it close...

"I think he should get his treatment," said Trunks from the far corner of the room, where he was leaning casually against an unused console and watching, for the most part in eerie silence. "We need to at least be able to get back. And Ru Sa has a part in this, too, or he wouldn't be here."

Nobody could argue with that. Well, Vejiita tried, but it didn't amount to anything.

"He already HAD his part," Vejiita griped to nobody in particular as Cumber and Gokuu led the very shaky Ru Sa out of the room. "Got us here already, and if that wasn't his kami-damned 'part,' then I would like to know what WAS."

"Calm down, papa," Trunks said, still not moving. The effect he gave, standing in the shadows with only the blue of his eyes clearly seen, was more than a bit creepy. Vejiita glared at him, then fell silent.

They had six minutes until the ship blew itself sky high.

* * *

The lab had seen better days. Landing sideways had pretty much spilled what few raw materials Vejiita had not ruined onto the floor, so Ru Sa had to spend two precious minutes rummaging around for things while Cumber and Gokuu coolly watched. Apparently, however "useful" he might be to them, neither could bring themselves to help him.

Well, that was fine. More satisfaction for him when they all died.

The ship began to shake just the tiniest bit as it entered the earth's atmosphere, aiming for the Capsule Corporation, and it was this rumbling, in the end, that saved Ru Sa's life.

His muscles already weakened, Ru Sa's knees gave out because of the slight trembling of the ship and he slammed into one of the cabinets by the sink - and a secret panel fell right off and onto the floor.

Ru Sa glanced back quickly - neither of the heroes were looking at him, and in fact seemed more concerned that the ship was not entering as smoothly as it should have been. Well, that is, Cumber was concerned; Gokuu was merely concerned because Cumber was.

Acting quickly, Ru Sa snatched up whatever Chive had had in there and put the panel back. What he grabbed turned out to be a single hypodermic filled with very, very bright blue liquid.

He studied it. Why would Chive have kept this hidden? She never kept _anything_ from him, not even things that were dangerous. And for that matter, what in hell WAS it?

"Is that the serum?" asked Cumber, a tad impatiently. He wanted to get back to the control room and see what was happening.

"Yes," answered Ru Sa even though he hadn't a clue as to what it really was, and, for no reason at all, promptly stuck it into his upper left arm and injected himself with it.

He immediately felt better. Apparently, he looked better, too, because both Gokuu and Cumber stiffened and assumed light battle poses.

"Are you ready?" asked Cumber. "We ought to be just about landed."

Ru Sa stood, already having regained his balance. Too quickly, really. "Fine. I'm ready," he said, and casually tossed the empty hypodermic into the sink. Well, at least the mystery-juice wasn't going to kill him. Probably.

Really, that had been very stupid. Sometimes his actions didn't even make sense to him. To willingly inject himself with something unknown when he had been in such a fragile state to begin with was one of the most foolish things he had done in a long time. However, as Ru Sa tromped back down the hall to the control room, catching a brief glimpse of the looming planet earth on the view screen, he couldn't help but think that he felt a WHOLE lot better than he should at this point. Damn. Maybe this was some kind of super-serum.

...that she had kept from him?

All of a sudden, Ru Sa didn't feel quite so badly about Chive's unpleasant and undignified death at the hands of a six year old girl. In fact, all of a sudden, he felt that she got exactly what she deserved.

The ship jolted once, gently, and stopped shuddering; they had successfully landed.

Ru Sa had exactly two minutes to get off before it blew.

* * *

Moot was the first to see them.

He happened to be looking up at the Canopy when it a parted directly down the center, neat as orange slices, and rumbled slowly apart. He stared; watching the sky part was certainly a new thing for him.

And within the widening gap, he could see the ship coming in for a landing. Moot grinned from ear to ear.

"They're coming!" he shouted, hopping up and down. "Reep was right! They're here!"

* * *

Moments before the ship landed, Bra knew there was trouble. She felt it in the shaking of the ship, in the mild fear and heightened anticipation coming from Ru Sa; she felt it even more once he gave himself that shot.

The moment he did, several things came clear to her at once. When she had absorbed Chive's soul she had gained more than her personality; she had gained knowledge. And she knew with certainty right now that they were in double danger - from the ship which was going to explode and from Ru Sa.

He never should have gotten his hands on that serum.

"PaPAAAAAAAA!" she screamed, and raced out of the room. Trunks, a bit surprised, followed her.

That scream distracted Gokuu and Cumber - and, which goes without saying, Vejiita.

Ru Sa took advantage of that split second of slacked attention and immediately took off.

* * *

On the outside of the ship, something strange had begun to happen - the vibrations which had shaken it upon landing increased - and then, horribly, small, quiet explosions began in the belly of the vessel.

Moot screeched to a halt and stared; and then everything happened just way too fast.

The ship trembled. The door opened. All of a sudden there were people flying out of the opening at top speed - and then the ship itself exploded.

Moot ran back to the Capsule Corporation, screaming.

* * *

Ru Sa cackled like a demon and flew for the front door, tearing at top speed and not giving a damn about any of them.

Gokuu felt it in the captain's ki - the bloodlust, the gratification of revenge - and knew that wherever Ru Sa was going, they needed to get out of here as well.

"RUN!" he shouted, and simply grabbed the surprised Cumber by the back of his shirt and took off flying for the entrance as well.

Trunks followed without a word.

Vejiita hesitated for half a second - then grabbed his daughter around the waist and followed after. The vibrations of small, muted explosions were echoing now through the floors.

Bulma had heard and felt the huge underground motors work and gone to watch the ship come in - she could hardly believe her eyes. The ship was _whole_ \- not blown up - and it was landing. It seemed that they had not made three jumps since they left her world - and it also seemed that Reep had been right. To top off this moment of wonders, the Canopy was holding together. She watched it close again above the ship, holding her breath to see if it would break. It did not.

She exhaled in relief - and then, with no warning, the ship exploded.

The shock waves from the explosion slammed into the Canopy, causing it to shudder; then large pieces of Junsei Aion, torn whole from their seams, came flying out of the smoke and debris and crashed into the nearer portions of the Canopy as well.

For a moment, nothing happened.

And then a large, irregular section of the Canopy cracked, crumbled, and broke off, falling inward - and leaving the inside unprotected.

"Oh, SHIT!" screamed Bulma. "It was cracked already and was going to break on its own but this is too soon AND MY SON IS OUT THERE!!"

In all the commotion, nobody heard her.

* * *

Not far away, only a couple of miles outside the Canopy, Kuro Trunks, who saw nothing in the way of normal vision, looked up with black eyes in time to see a large, cracked chunk of the Junsei Aion glass cave inward, revealing a hole the side of a bus.

Without any sound at all, he lifted into the air and went toward it.


	26. Reunion (1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Past, present, and future have converged - and Kuro Trunks has found them.

**Interlude 26.1: Reep - Prophecy Revisited**

_Pure of heart, and pure of will;  
making sleep and slumbers still.  
Slumber not, to 'venge, to die;  
rage is pure as love is high. _

_**Oh, Gokuu - 'tis you indeed; ah, if only that your love, which makes you so strong, would not be that which causes you to fall...** _

_****Ice with fire's heart, flame never still -  
twice perished, thrice cherished - strong, the untapped will.  
Rage rules over the night and makes day;  
Anger must dry, love fade away.  
First - rage made whole, the bearer of life,  
Yet first to come is second in right. _

_**Vejiita, prince of the dead, bound by your own damaged soul... how much pain will you have be before you let go of yourself?** _

_Half - becomes what Jouten would have be -  
Death to death cause, end of Nothing see.  
Brings light into darkness, gods' only hope;  
Time's end, worlds fend; death - quicksilver rope.  
Half is light that rages, only pure of heart  
be sufficient then to break apart the Beginning  
of End; whole, then, must move to make whole the part. _

_**Trunks, son of Vejiita - and inheritor of all that is Real! Ah, beautiful boy... you shall bring an End to End and make Nothing bloom into completeness!** _

_Grand the gain and gauge the loss -  
Emptied soul must last chance toss.  
For choices then still must be made -  
loyalty or good, the price is paid;  
And result determines Black's dear cost,  
To survive - burned must be the dross. _

_**Sweet Cumber, wild card, cast off from your own people and onto another. So important you are - you, who have no idea of the impact of your impending death.** _

_Pluck a-plick a-sing a song,  
Love is grand as night is long;  
Moon is dim and stars are bright, oh  
Frick a-frack a-tuck a-tight.  
Endings still may not be guessed -  
But ones to cause it, cannot bring  
Will of their own; matters be best  
the choice of them who suffer long._

_**And I...** _

_**I bring to fruition.** _

* * *

Reep was not at all what people thought him to be. Oh, they knew he was strange; anyone who spoke with him for the space of a few minutes knew that. However, no one really had any idea of how _deep_.

Reep had been in existence long before the Black entered this world; long before, in fact, there was any need at all for the eighth dragon ball which he'd guarded so carefully. He had stayed hidden, between worlds, and there waited his turn - knowing, with all his being, that when the time came for him to move, he would do so without fail.

He had not been alone forever; in fact, he had spent most of his time communing with Gai, the third dragon, and watching the events on earth with a fascinated curiosity. He had never spoken words aloud before he met Dende in Mirai Trunks' world - and considering that, he had not done too poorly.

It was Reep who had, when the time was ripe, deposited the mysterious extra dragon ball deep within Dende's storage; when Dende had found it and been summarily transported directly to Mirai no Trunks' world, Reep had been there waiting for him - and ready to direct him to where he was needed most. It was Reep who had hinted and pushed (but gently) until the ball was put in Moot's hands - and then all had seen its power as it glowed and brought light to a lightless place. Reep had seen to it that these Namek-people he was coming to love were safe, and that Dende knew all he would need to know before the coming of the Chosen One. And then...

Reep's job was almost done. What he was going to do AFTER all had been accomplished, he had no idea; that really wasn't important at the moment. What WAS important was making sure that the Chosen One got his hands on that dragon ball before it was too late.

There were some things even Gai could not fix.

Now, Reep watched with amazement as the Kyuujinshu ship landed, began to implode, and then splurted from its main hatch five characters who would have the most important roles yet to play in this affair. Reep was not amazed that the ship had exploded; he was amazed that all five members of the Prophecy had arrived at once.

In the distance and barely visible, Trunks could be seen spinning out of the ship as quickly as he could, dazed and breathless because he had collided with Cumber accidentally. The two men fell to the ground and disappeared from Reep's view.

Without hesitation, Reep hopped after him. Trunks had to be reached, had to be warned; as the Chosen One, he had much to do, and the dragon ball was too far away from him to be of any use at all.

Reep would simply have to nudge him toward his destiny.

* * *

Vejiita flew away from the ship at top speed, not knowing his destiny nor capable of caring one whit about it if he had. He carried in his arms a most precious burden: Bra.

The girl lay limply in his grasp as he flew, extending his ki shield to protect them both from the blast waves and shrapnel. She had just... passed out after she screamed, and had not yet recovered. Vejiita did not know why she had fainted or the why ship had exploded, but he was willing to bet that Ru Sa was at the bottom of both. He seemed to be at the bottom of ALL Vejiita's problems today.

The prince snarled and avoided a large slice of metal that came hurtling toward them. The pieces of Junsei Aion Bulma had so carefully welded to the ship's surface were flying off like shots from a cannon - whole, unharmed, and very, very dangerous. He swerved to avoid another one, cursing volubly at the size of the thing as it fell past him. Bra still had not regained consciousness.

Vejiita slowed a bit as he increased the distance between himself and the still-imploding ship, trying to get his bearing and see where everybody was. Ru Sa had made tracks and was nowhere to be seen; big surprise there. When Vejiita got hold of him, he'd wish he had run farther.

Another large chunk of metal, silvery and smooth, slipped by inches from Vejiita's body as he deftly avoided it. This wasn't that difficult, really; these things were big, but they were slow, and only an idiot would let -

From the corner of his eye, Vejiita saw Gokuu run smack into one of the pieces headfirst, losing his grip on Cumber, and whirling off into the dark in the process. Then, to complete the show, Cumber went pinwheeling straight into Trunks and they _both_ went down; they crashed into the ground and out of sight.

Vejiita sighed with disgust. Did _nobody_ have a brain but him?

Not waiting to see if they were all right, he spun around and put more distance between himself and the ship, intent on finding a safe place to put Bra until he could locate Ru Sa and gut him. He spotted something like a building up ahead and - hoping that Ru Sa had not chosen this rather obvious location as a hiding place - flew toward it, still carefully cradling Bra in his arms, supporting her head.

He had almost arrived when he noticed the scents.

This place HAD no scents, for the most part; and yet here, it was full of... of...

Of Namek?

Yes... and fire. What on earth were Nameks doing in a place like this lighting fires?

Vejiita did not have time for such mysteries. Alert for danger and slightly powered up, he hovered above the building and scanned the area for anything that might be dangerous. There was no sign of Ru Sa, as expected; the man was not stupid enough to hide in what was apparently the only edifice on the entire planet. However, there _was_ a ki inside; it was one that seemed bizarrely familiar to him, although the familiarity he found there was simply not possible. It was Bulma's ki; and Bulma was dead. Had been, for some time now.

Unconsciously holding his daughter more tightly, Vejiita landed and approached the building with something approaching unease. He had no desire to tangle with dead people. He had enough on his plate as it was.

But before he got the chance to investigate the inside of the building, a sharp explosion sounded from behind it. Apparently, Ru Sa HAD been stupid enough to use the building as a shield; unfortunately, Vejiita had no idea what he was shooting at or why.

Gameplan development took only a moment. He would lay Bra down very carefully by the door, zip around the building, find the captain, and kill him; simple, forthright, effective. He could only hope that Bra would be safe here, and then he could -

Bulma stepped from the shadows of the doorway and out into the open.

There was a moment in which they merely looked at one another, he still on his knees with Bra and she standing stiffly before him. Neither moved.

Namek-screaming now replaced the sounds of explosions from behind the building, and Vejiita revised his plan.

"Here," he said, abruptly thrusting his still comatose daughter into Bulma's arms. "Take care of her. If she is harmed in any way, you die." And with that, he flew off, leaving this woman whom he accurately guessed to be the "other" Trunks' mother in charge of his little girl. He hoped. Either way, there was no time to deal with it right now.

Bulma stared at Bra in much the same way that she had stared at Vejiita. She could not take her eyes off this child who was _not_ her child but had her eyes, her hair, even her perfectly pouting lips...

And finally, Bra stirred.

Turning sleepy, blue eyes toward Bulma, she said, "You're not okaasan," and went back to sleep again.

Bulma felt tears welling in her eyes, and didn't know if she should stifle them or let them flow. For that matter, she wasn't even sure WHY she was crying.

"No honey, I'm not," she said, and hurried back inside along with Bra to keep safe from the possible ki blasts that would be flying soon. Vejiita had had his "death to the enemy" face on, and Bulma knew from long ago that that meant destruction of SOMETHING was certain to follow.

Bulma shivered and tried not to worry at the sounds of fighting behind the building, thanking the gods - if there were any left - that it was coated in Junsei Aion so at least she and Bra would be all right. In the process, she wondered, dazedly, where the Nameks had all gone.

* * *

**Interlude 26.2: Ru Sa's Mistake**

Ru Sa had not intended to end up with the eighth dragon ball; until a few moments ago, he had not even known it existed.

When he went flying from the ship at his quickest possible pace, his only thought was to hide out until the others went away and then find a way OFF this rock. He simply knew there had to be one; fate would not betray him as badly as this and leave him stranded.

He had flown away from the ship at top speed and zipped behind the Capsule Corporation, hoping to hide there until he got the chance to sneak away. Taking Vejiita on at close range with surprise on his side he could do; dealing with three angry Super Saiyans and a possible attack from the traitorous Cumber was a little too much for him to handle.

He just stood back there, doing his best to breath quietly and not attract attention. He had to think; had to get away. The ship was gone now, so he would not escape with that. There had to be SOME way that he could kill or abandon all the others here, survive himself, and get back to that place that he had found... that quiet, beautiful place that seemed to be on the dawn of time.

Suddenly, the sound of rapid, light footsteps came from around the other side of the building and disrupted his reverie; someone was coming. Ru Sa tensed and prepared to fire.

And of all people, Moot came skidding around the corner. He gasped and slid to a halt, holding the glowing dragonball in front of him like a shield. Moot was thoroughly spooked by the appearance and consequential destruction of the ship, and had come back here for shelter; the last person he had expected to see was Ru Sa.

Ru Sa blinked down at him, forgetting for half a moment that he had gone to the trouble of depositing a whole pile of Nameks here. He then transferred his gaze to the dragonball and stared at it in wonder; he had never seen anything like it. In Moot's hands, it glowed with an inner fire, bright white light that seemed to make everything it touched beautiful - even himself, although he could not know that. Ru Sa had not intended to grab for it; but on the other hand, he had not expected it to come flying toward him, either.

With no warning, a large, smoking piece of shrapnel fell from out of the sky and winged Moot on the side. The little Namek fell, mostly unhurt - but he lost his grip on the dragonball; it was flung from his grasp and straight at Ru Sa.

Its light immediately went out; Ru Sa caught it, and it did something that it had not done for anybody else who had yet held it. Instead of glowing - it seemed to grow dark. Blackish, shadowy wisps, the same shape as the light that had come from it, floated up from the surface of the dragonball itself, obscuring his hands. Ru Sa panicked.

Without thinking of what he was doing, he cried out and flung it off to the left somewhere, sending a large ki blast after the thing for good measure. To a certain extent, he could hardly be blamed; after all, he had seen the Black in every timeline he had gone to, chasing after him as though it had a vendetta; it was perhaps natural for him to react that way to something dark like that that he could not explain. However, his actions made Moot particularly unhappy.

"No!" Moot screamed. "Don't do that, it's important!" Ru Sa scowled at him.

"Why you little..." he started, and that was when Vejiita flew around the side of the building.

Vejiita glared at him. "You MORON!" he shouted. "You destroyed the ship. How are any of us supposed to get out of here?"

"No," said Ru Sa, truthfully enough. "I didn't destroy it. Bulma did. You know - the one you died on and left here all alone?" He smirked; perhaps if he could get Vejiita _close_ enough to attack physically...

Well, that ought to be simple enough.

"She was a very good fuck," he remarked blithely.

Vejiita's eyes widened. Without even thinking about what he was doing, he powered up to Super Saiyan level two and slammed into Ru Sa like a berzerker, ki blazing and roaring like a mad man.

Moot could do little more than cover his head and scream; but by the time he had done that, the combatants had already moved some distance away. The light and sound from their ki attacks dimly reached his senses.

And now, Moot had a different problem; he knew his responsibility lay with the dragonball, and he had to go find it - no question about that; but the large piece of scrap-metal that had knocked him down had also pinned his robe to the dirt. Moot could not move.

Flailing his limbs as though he were swimming, Moot screamed for help and tried to see where the dragonball had gone.

* * *

Cumber was knocked out of Gokuu's grasp and directly into Trunks before he got the chance to regain control of his momentum. Trunks had time to do little more than try to catch Cumber in his arms to prevent the breaking of bones before they were flung away by Cumber's inertia; they slammed into the ground hard enough to rock the wind out of them both.

They lay there, panting, Cumber stretched across Trunks' body like a dead lover, when a high-pitched whistling sound reached their ears. Trunks opened his eyes in time to see an absolutely huge piece of Junsei Aion heading right toward them. He gasped.

Before either of them got the chance to react, however, it seemed to _clang_ into something just above them and immediately changed trajectory. The thing flew straight over their heads and impacted into the earth some five feet from them.

"What... what just happened?" asked Cumber in wonder, and that's when he saw Reep.

"CHOSEN one!!" Reep exclaimed, and Cumber cried out and leapt back a few feet. Trunks took a more sedate approach.

"Uh... hi," he said, rolling over onto his stomach and eyeing Reep curiously. He had never seen anything like it.

Reep beamed at him showing all of his huge, flat, pointed teeth at once. "HERE you are!" he shouted, and leapt into the air.

Cumber scurried back another foot or two. "How did you do that?" he demanded, pointing at the Junsei aion. "Nothing should have had the force to deflect that; it was about to cut us in half. What did you do?"

Trunks chuckled lightly, trying to defuse things. "Geez, Cumber, you make it sound like you WANTED us to be cut in half. Relax." He turned to Reep, hoping that Cumber would take his cue and pipe down. "And what's your name, little fellow?" Trunks did not like the idea of something as small as... whatever this thing was being able to deflect Junsei Aion any more than Cumber did; but he also knew this was not the time to discuss it.

Reep leapt straight up into the air and twirled around once as if in response.

"Reep! Reep, the kami named me! But that is not important... half... you are HALF! Prophecy! You must fulfill the Prophecy!" He leaned closer, lidless eyes seemingly huge in the dim light. "You are the Chosen One. He who has been made pure by Jouten and so must call forth the last and final Dragon - Gai, who holds the song of power."

Trunks looked at him with no visible reaction; but deep in his being, something seemed to surge at Reep's statement. A deep, powerful yearning awakened inside him, filling his soul with purpose, with joy - with desire.

His voice quiet and carefully even, Trunks asked: "And where is the eighth dragon ball?"

Reep sighed; the jollity faded from his face. "It is missing," he answered, and turned to lead the way.

* * *

Gokuu was flung the farthest in the ensuing explosion by a freak circumstance; one of the chunks of Junsei Aion, approximately ten feet across and shaped like a ship's sail, smashed directly into him and tore Cumber from his grasp. The inertia carried him and the metal some distance from the ship, and they both slammed into the ground quite hard - with Gokuu on the bottom. He slid for some hundred feet, scraping the shirt off his body and tearing his skin, until he came to a stop. When he finally stopped moving, it was all he could do to lie there for a long moment, coughing just to get the dust out of his lungs.

"Ow," he said, and was about to exert the minimum pressure necessary to lift the metal off him when somebody else did it for him.

The chunk of Junsei Aion came off his body as smoothly as though it weighed nothing. "Hey, thanks - " he started to say to whomever his helper was, and that's when he saw it was Gohan.

He stared.

Gohan smiled almost shyly. "Hello, otousan," he greeted his father.

Gokuu looked at him. His son - his oldest son - alive and well. "Gohan?" he said in a choked voice, and without even thinking flew straight off the ground and snatched the young man into his arms. He held him tightly, silently.

Gohan felt his father's breath hitch once and smiled. Words would be wasted.

Their moment was interrupted when Dende found them.

"Gokuu!" he shouted, upset, frantic, and panting. "Hurry! Ru Sa!"

He needed say no more. Gokuu was not about to forget his mission here, even though he was presently happier than he'd been in his entire life. "Come on, Gohan," he said with tears in his eyes, failing to notice the new tail and incapable of caring about such a thing even if he had. "Let's go get the bad guy."

Gohan smiled.

They took off.

Dende watched them go, still panting. Altogether, it had been a VERY tiring day for him and most of his ki was used up. Flying back could pose a problem.

"Bah," he said, sick of heroism and the whole business altogether. He watched the steadily shrinking figures of Gokuu and Gohan, and exhaustion seemed to fill his entire being. He sighed. Well... the walk back might as well happen now; better sooner than later. He took two steps, and that was when he became aware of the sound of someone behind him. He spun around.

Kuro Trunks, face gaunt, eyes completely black and mouth open as though preparing to eat something, reached for him.

Dende screamed and dodged.

And the race was on.


	27. Complication/Collapse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death. Mindless pursuit. And a real shock for how Vegeta thinks the world works.

Everything was happening at once in Mirai no Trunks' damaged world. Vejiita fought with Ru Sa in the air, neither aware of the grievous consequences following Ru Sa's action of throwing away the eighth dragon ball. A small distance away, Trunks and Cumber followed Reep into the darkness, trying to find the missing dragon ball and feeling distinctly pressured to hurry. And further away still, Gohan and Gokuu headed toward Vejiita, intent on doing damage and inflicting justice upon the already belabored Ru Sa.

Now, to be truthful, this all seemed to be destined toward a predictable end; Ru Sa would lose (and perhaps turn good, given the Z-senshi's record of late), Trunks would get the dragon ball, and all would be well. After all, Gokuu was in full super-hero-save-the-world mode; nothing ever, _ever_ got in his way successfully when he was.

There were, however, three variables not accounted for in this neat little thesis. The first was that Mirai no Trunks himself was, for obvious reasons, not at all well and was presently attempting to grab Dende. He naturally gravitated toward higher powers, however, and it would only be a matter of time before he decided to abandon the panicked Namek and head toward Gokuu and co. They would have no defense against him, nor would they even know he was coming.

The second was an odd factor that bothered Reep very much indeed; the presence of Bulma, Bra, and Gohan. Nowhere were they mentioned in the prophecy, nor had Reep had any forewarning of their arrival. They were wild cards, and Reep was not sure at all how their inclusion was going to affect the outcome of things. Even worse than that, however, Gohan had arrived in a _ship_. If Ru Sa somehow managed to get to it, he could escape, and while Reep wasn't that concerned about the justice of the issue, he WAS concerned that one of the main components of the prophecy might leave - in which case, the entire thing would fall apart. The Black would win... and it truly would be the END of all.

The third factor was one that Reep knew very little about, although he knew it was coming. It was one that would affect Gokuu greatly and on a personal level, weakening him to the point that he would be in grave danger. Reep knew Gokuu's love had always been his strength; and now, in a bitter ironic twist - it would also be his enemy.

To put it simply... Chi Chi was about to die.

* * *

**Earth**

In Satan City, back in the still-existing timeline from which Gokuu and company had come, Chi Chi lay in her hospital bed and concentrated on breathing. Truthfully, this was very painful for her; if it had been entirely up to her, she would have just quit breathing and be done with it, artificial respirators be damned. But she could not do that; Gokuu and Gohan had still not come home.

Piccolo hovered and meditated by her side, the ever-silent guardian. Yes, Gohan was missing - and yes, Gohan's natural mother was dying. And yes - there was nothing that Piccolo could do about either of those. However, he could do one thing: that was to keep watch.

To maintain vigil over the increasingly fragile Son Chi Chi, and to make sure that all was as well as it could be with her. This was the task to which Piccolo had assigned himself, and woe betide the nurse or doctor who tried to talk him out of it.

For the doctors' parts, they were used to such shenanigans from the Z-senshi; not one of them had ever been a normal patient. However, as far as Chi Chi was concerned, they were to a one amazed:

There was no way that the woman should still be alive.

Her heart condition had deteriorated to the point that even trying a heart transplant would not help her; the damage done in extent to her body was too much. It was their opinion, one and all, that she was remaining alive by the mere force of will - that she simply refused to give up the ghost and die because she felt an overwhelming need to _wait_.

Dr. Tanaka, her senior attending physician, regarded her feeble, struggling breaths from the safety of the doorway - out of reach of the green fellow, in case he should feel that Tanaka were bothering her - and frowned in consternation. Willpower was impressive, yes, and could cause a human being to do great feats indeed - but even willpower could only hold out for so long. Stepping gingerly so as not to make the green man irritated, Tanaka took up her chart and looked it over. He bent over her to check her vital signs and time her pulse; he even fiddled with the IV bag a little bit before coming to his conclusion.

When Dr. Tanaka straightened back up again, his face was grim.

"I think we'd better call her family," he said quietly to the expressionless Piccolo. "I'm afraid she doesn't have much longer at all." With that, the good doctor went back out into the hallway, intending to call a nurse and have Ms. Son's family paged and alerted to her condition. Piccolo watched him go without comment; then he turned his head and regarded Chi Chi, who may or may not have even been aware that the doctor was there.

"Hang in there, woman," Piccolo said quietly, gruffly. "Gohan's not back yet, but he will be. You have to live a little longer. There is no choice." His voice lacked conviction. He knew instinctively as well as Chi Chi did that things were happening far too quickly wherever Gohan was, and he would probably not be back in time. That did not mean she would not try to hold out; it simply meant that her body was going to give up long before her spirit quit fighting.

Piccolo regarded her with something like respect. He had always suspected that the kind of woman it took to successfully run the Son family would have to be something special - but he had never imagined such a powerful inner strength. Gokuu had married well when he had married her.

Piccolo sighed and resumed his meditation. He could only hope now that Gohan would, by some miracle, return in time to bid his mother goodbye.

Perhaps that thought had been some kind of prearranged signal. Piccolo covered his ears in pain as alarms and bells of all kinds went off in the room, all coming from Chi Chi's life support units.

Still wincing in pain, Piccolo flew to the door and bellowed for help, not giving a damn about other patients in the hospital. It seemed that Gohan was going to have less time to complete his mission anyone had thought.

* * *

Back in Mirai no Trunks' world, for one moment and for one man - everything froze.

Gokuu stopped in mid flight on the way toward Vejiita and gripped his chest, a pained expression on his face. Gohan pulled up and flew back to see what was the matter.

"Otousan?" he asked hesitantly, not sure what was wrong.

Gokuu had always had a connection with his loved ones. No matter where he was or what he was doing, no matter if he was alive or dead, he had always known when they were in trouble, in danger, or hurting; and now, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Chi Chi was about to die.

And there was nothing he could do about it.

"N-nothing," he said to his son, and looked up at the sky - which had mysteriously continued to grow lighter. "Chi Chi," he said softly once, and then said something that made no sense to Gohan at all. "I'm sorry, Chi Chi." Then, answering his instinctive call to be the hero, he steeled himself and raced toward Vejiita and Ru Sa once more, a truly terrible look on his face.

Gohan was scared, but he followed anyway. He had only seen his father look like that once before, and that was when Kuririn had died at the hands of Freeza - a long, LONG time ago. And this terrible something apparently had to do with his mother...

 _Oh, God_ , he prayed silently, to whom he did not know. _Oh God help us all,_ and then he followed after his father under the steadily lightening sky.

* * *

Time was running short, and the Nameks were missing. There was a very good reason for this, and it could be summed up in three simple words: Reep's Back-up Plan.

Ideally and simplistically, the idea was for Hikari Trunks - Shining Trunks, the good one, not the one currently under control of the Black - to get his hands on the eighth dragon ball and call forth Gai, the dragon. Previous to this climactic event, Dende would probably have the dragon ball - or Moot, preferably, because the boy COULD make it glow - and he/they would transfer the thing safely to Trunks.

However, the damage of the Canopy had changed all that. Now, Kuro Trunks was in here along with everybody else, and he was in a position to do serious damage. If he were to get his hands on any of the key players, or worse yet the dragon ball itself, the game would be over before it had fully begun. Hence, something would have to be done about him.

Now, Reep was "good," inasmuch as a being created for one sole purpose _could_ be deemed "good" or "evil." However, that did not mean he was not cold-hearted when he needed to be.

Right now, the entire universe - all the universes - stood at risk of dissolution. If Hikari Trunks failed, or Gai was not called in time, there would be nothing left but the Original timeline - and that was empty.

The most important thing needed to prevent this from happening was the distraction of Kuro Trunks. He could not be killed, and fighting him would be pointless because he absorbed energy and _wanted_ to touch his victims. Therefore: distraction was really the only hope. To that end, the sacrifice of a few Nameks was more than excused; in fact, it was absolutely necessary.

Of course, Reep did not explain this to them that way; instead, as the Kyuujinshu ship began to land, he shouted to the Nameks gathered around the building that Dende was in trouble, and they needed to help - all of which was true. And then, his conscience none the heavier, he had gone hopping off in Hikari Trunks' direction, determined to get the boy to the dragon ball safely. It was only a temporary sacrifice anyway; if all went as planned, then everything would be restored, and there would BE no major loss of Namek life. At least, this was how Reep explained it to himself. He was fond of the Nameks; fond of them, oddly enough, in the same way they were of him - as something strange, wonderful, and very unique. In fact, he had grown to care for Moot in particular a great deal.

Perhaps that was why he had seen to it that the child would be pinned safely behind the Capsule Corporation and out of reach of Kuro Trunks.

There were no minor gods left in this universe to question Reep's morality, and as his pragmatic approach was at least getting results, he for one was not about to complain. All that mattered now was that the prophecy be fulfilled, and the cost was utterly negligible - at least, from his point of view. The good guys would be weakened enough as a group when Gokuu fell. No more mistakes could be afforded.

Reep considered that as he hopped toward Hikari Trunks and the nice one, Cumber. Gokuu did not have much longer before he _did_ fall, and it really was a shame that nobody knew it but Reep. After all, no one would ever expect Gokuu to be weakened by the one thing that always kept him strong -

His love.

Ah, well. Surprises were the spice of life. Reep hopped on toward Trunks and Cumber and pondered that no more.

* * *

Bee was a very faithful dog. In fact, he was actually quite courageous - although to look at him, one would not think so; he was simply too _cute_ to be a real hero. Mind you, no one had apparently told Bee that.

As the Kyuujinshu's ship landed and everyone began to scatter, Bee had been paying attention to one thing: the location of Dende. And so, when Reep had announced that Dende was in trouble and then hopped off, Bee alone knew where to find him. He had barked derisively at the other Nameks for daring to just SIT there when his beloved Dende was in trouble, and then darted off.

It had only taken a moment for the remainder of the Namek elders to get enough wits together to go after him - they'd finally be able to do _some_ good instead of sitting around like a pointy-eared and exceedingly useless peanut gallery - but by that time, Bee had already found Dende... as well as what was chasing him.

* * *

Dende was thoroughly terrified. Like a black-eyed zombie, Kuro Trunks plodded after him with a frightening regularity, neither increasing nor decreasing the distance between them. Apparently, he was trying to wear Dende out or frighten him to death, whichever came first.

In a way, it made sense; the original purpose of the Black had been to frighten and hurt the damned souls of demons anyway, and so it might be argued that Kuro Trunks was merely doing his job. Dende, however, was not overly glad for the attention.

He was pretty much out of ki; the exploits of the last week or so had seen to that. The Saiyans and everyone else were too far away to help him, and it seemed utterly impossible for him to catch his breath. Of course, scuttling like a crab on his back was not helping; he had fallen when Kuro Trunks had made his first appearance, and had not dared to take the time to stand upright yet.

Kuro Trunks did not seem put out by the oddity of Dende's position; he stomped along after him, the nearly invisible black wisps of... stuff... coming up from his body looking very much like heat waves from sun-warmed asphalt. He was gaunt, slack-mouthed; his eyes were completely black, and he marched with one hand outstretched as if to bestow a blessing - or a curse. Merely looking at him was enough to make the soul chill and the heart stop. All of these lovely details could be seen in sharp relief due to the sky that had inexplicably been growing steadily lighter; all the better to see you with, my dear.

Dende continued scrabbling backwards, trying desperately not to trip himself up on his robe. _At least,_ he thought to himself breathlessly, _I managed to do SOME good before the inevitable caught up with me;_ and at that moment, Bee arrived.

The brave little dog, knowing instinctively not to touch Kuro Trunks' flesh, did a simple move that many little dogs do when begging for food or attention; he leapt up on his hind legs and slammed into the back of Kuro Trunks' knees.

This version of Trunks, not really having a functioning brain to work with, fell immediately, and Dende had to roll out of his way. Bee barked like mad, hopping back and forth as though he was dealing with a poisonous snake.

Dende finally managed to stand up. "Bee, get OUT of here!" he shouted, waving his arms and having no clear idea of what he was doing. And in half a moment, he suddenly found himself surrounded by Nameks.

"Wha..." he began, but the others left no time for discussion.

"Come on, Dende!" Bulb shouted and started running, gripping the very confused Dende by one arm and dragging him along. Kuro Trunks merely continued to stare in the general direction of the yipping, bounding Bee as though fascinated.

Very abruptly, Dende tripped on something. It took him half a moment to realize that something was the eighth dragon ball - and then Bulb was dragging him beyond it.

"Wait! Hey! We need that!" he shouted and pointed, and one of the other Nameks snatched it up as he ran by. How it had gotten there, nobody knew, but it would certainly not be LEFT there for Kuro Trunks to get his hands on. Dende tried not to worry too much about what might have happened to Moot...

This brought the term "thinking on your feet" to an entirely new level.

And as though the dragon ball was emitting a siren call that none but him could hear, Kuro Trunks suddenly lurched to his feet, responding to an instinct deeper than anything they could understand, and began trotting after them.

* * *

Vejiita had no idea what was about to happen; he had no premonitions of doom, no heavy feelings regarding an inevitable future. He only knew two things: he really, really hated Ru Sa, and the stubborn man was refusing to die.

Well - perhaps he knew one more thing. Apparently, Ru Sa hated him as much as he hated Ru Sa.

It might have had something to do with that last comment the evil, evil man had made regarding this world's Bulma; similarly, it might merely have to do with the _way_ in which Ru Sa had dealt with Vejiita and his kin, as opposed to the way he had dealt with Kakarotto and his. Whatever the reason, a realization was dawning on Vejiita with frightening clarity, and as he became aware of it he only wanted to know one thing: _why_?

Ru Sa was fighting as though he wanted _revenge_.

Why? What had Vejiita or his children ever done to this man that he would hate them so much? It made no sense, and yet the more they fought, the more Vejiita was convinced of this fact. Ru Sa fought with a kind of ferocity, a blood-thirsty desire for violence that went beyond the feral norm and pushed the boundaries of self-preservation. Vejiita recognized the look. He had worn it more than a few times himself.

That fact right there was enough to condemn Ru Sa to death at Vejiita's hands; no one touched those that were his and lived. NO one. Of course, this made the urgency of the situation a bit stronger; if Vejiita wanted to finish Ru Sa before Kakarotto interfered - as he inevitably would - then he would have to _hurry_.

Gritting his teeth, Vejiita continued to slam into Ru Sa, punctuating each blow with a favorite trick of his: he charged his fists with ki and delivered double the power with every punch. Far be it from HIM to allow a little thing like superior physical strength to provide an opening for his enemy.

"What is your PROBLEM?" he finally shouted at one point when the combatants were separated enough to catch their respective breaths.

Ru Sa hung in the air, wiping blood off his face and panting. He merely glared at Vejiita and did not answer.

He was angry. Very angry. The entire purpose of his casual Bulma-related remark had been to get Vejiita close enough to be attacked and drained. All it had done, however, was incense him and bring him close enough to fight like a wild thing. The prince simply would _not_ let him grab hold; and extra physical strength or no, a little thing like a ki level at least four times his own made a major difference in this battle.

And the little prince wanted some answers. Ha. As if Ru Sa would even deign to TALK with this destroyer of worlds, this evil thing, bred from evil, spawning further evil... responsible ultimately for the Black because his own damned son had set it loose...

Vejiita watched Ru Sa's face carefully as these thoughts crossed the other man's mind, and as he did he realized something else he could add to the list of Ru Sa-esque adjectives. The captain was mad. Mad as a hatter, to use the earthling phrase - in fact, it was entirely possible that he had just SEEN the captain snap. It disgusted Vejiita somewhat. Good fighter; shame he had to be nuts.

"Fine," Vejiita said, "I don't have to know why you hate me. I don't CARE why you want revenge. You dared to touch what was mine - and you do NOT harm what is Vejiita's and walk away undamaged! Prepare to die, fool!" And having made his little speech, Vejiita charged again - only to be interrupted from an expected but nevertheless irritating source: Kakarotto.

Gokuu came out of nowhere and slammed into Ru Sa from the side, knocking both himself and his target out of Vejiita's range.

"NO!" roared Vejiita, furious that his prey was taken away from him. "Kami... DAMNIT!" he cursed, scowling in the general direction of the light-blur that was Gokuu. All right, so the younger man had his own bone to pick with the captain; Ru Sa HAD killed Gohan and Goten, after all, but Vejiita had seen him first, and -

"Vejiita?" said a soft voice from behind him, and the Saiyan prince spun to see the last person in the world he had expected to see: Gohan.

He stared.

"You... you're alive!" he managed to splutter, for the moment sufficiently distracted from Gokuu's vicious fight so as not to notice the direction in which they were moving: the Capsule Corporation.

Gohan smiled hesitantly. "Yes, I am," he said. "And so are you. What a coincidence, eh?"

Vejiita continued to stare. Well... that was... Well. Full of surprises, those Son boys were.

Vejiita peeked over Gohan's shoulder as though expecting to see Goten trailing behind, but instead of seeing Gokuu's youngest son he saw something else.

He could see, in the steadily lightening sky, what looked like a bunch of Nameks running like mad from an emaciated Trunks and tossing a large, reddish ball back and forth between them.

"What in hell..." he started to ask, and that was when tragedy struck.

You see, something had been happening slowly and consistently in the background of all this activity; something that no one could see or hear or sense. The Black - having been mutated by traveling through the holes the Kyuujinshu's ship had left, had gone full circle and was now coming _back_ to Mirai no Trunks' world. Why did this matter? For two reasons:

One, this different form of the Black was much, much more dangerous than its original state; the original Black at least left husks of planets and could not penetrate anything coated in Junsei Aion. This new Black did not have either of those limitations.

The second reason was not as simple, and in fact was quite bizarre: as it moved, this mutated Black had a whirlpool effect on all the realities it touched, warping and twisting and actually _dragging_ them along in its path, crushing them together and making them all one. As the new Black was approaching Mirai no Trunks' world, from whence it had originated, it was in a sense completing a circle - joining with itself, and connecting its path into one continuous flow.

And dragging all of reality with it.

As Gokuu attacked Ru Sa, taking out on that man all of his angst concerning sons and wife and friend, the sky up above him abruptly seemed to open into bright white light - but not light from this universe.

It was light from universes that had been mutated and pulled _through_ the dimensional walls to merge forcibly with this one. The result was not good.

For a moment, everyone froze completely as their minds were forced to accept the information from a dozen other versions of themselves - merging, as they were, by force, merely because the new Black was making it so. And in that moment, something horrible happened: Chi Chi's world, which had not yet been completely destroyed, came into contact with this one.

The planet seemed to flicker, shifting between one dimension and another, now filled with cars and trees and people, now back to the barren landscape that comprised what it _really_ was. Panting, Gokuu saw St. Satan hospital flash into being for half a moment, and with that preternatural clarity of mind's eye he always seemed to have, he saw Chi Chi - lying on her bed, and breathing her last breaths.

"Chi Chi!" he shouted, distracted, and Ru Sa chose that exact moment to strike.

It happened so quickly; and with everyone confused and disoriented by this forced coagulation of realities, no one reacted in time. Ru Sa grabbed both sides of Gokuu's head and pressed his mouth to Gokuu's own.

Within seconds, Gokuu was drained of all his strength and was all but dead himself.

"NO!" shouted Gohan, horrified to see what had been done to him being done to another, and he slammed into Ru Sa - but too late. Gokuu, looking old, so old beyond his years and frail beyond recognition, fell limply to the ground and moved no more.

What happened then was perhaps what could only be expected. Ru Sa, with Gokuu's strength atop his own, overpowered Gohan quite easily and batted him to the ground.

The sky continued to flash - black, blue, white, red - whatever the sky's color happened to be in whatever dimension was dominant at that moment. And all Vejiita could do was stare at Gokuu.

Kakarotto... never lost. Kakarotto just _did not lose,_ and.... he... never... lost. He NEVER LOST. This was... this was unexpec-

The blow that hit him then could have only come from Kakarotto himself - or one who had his power. It was enough to knock him quite senseless and render him as useless as Kakarotto AND Kakarotto's son. And then for all intents and purposes, it was over. Completely over.

Chi Chi died without ever seeing her husband again. She passed as easily as water through a sieve, there one breath and gone the next. She had relatively little pain, and in her passing, she missed the crush of her world and the destruction of all who lived there. In a sense, she was very, very lucky.

Gokuu lay unconscious, unaware even that Chi Chi was gone and that his own life lay in peril; Gohan sprawled on the ground some distance away, knocked senseless and ridiculously out-matched even if he had been awake. And Vejiita... well, Ru Sa had plans for Vejiita, and none of them were very nice. He would wish he'd been allowed to die quickly by the time Ru Sa was done with him. The captain, looking pensive and pleasant, calmly took out his ki staple gun and began pinning Saiyans to the wall like bugs.

Dende saw all this from a distance, as did the other Nameks, but none of them had time to worry about it. Kuro Trunks was less than impressed by the fireworks and merely kept coming. Dende did not know what to do; there was no sign of Reep, Cumber, or the other Trunks at all, and he did not know which direction in to turn. So, panicking, he led the group toward the other side of the Capsule Corporation, where another surprise awaited them: Bulma in full vengeance-from-hell mode.

In the Capsule Corporation, Bulma had screamed bloody murder when she saw Vejiita fall, sure that he had been killed as he was so often in her dreams. And then, with a cold, hard motion of will, she decided that it did not matter. What mattered was making sure that Ru Sa did not get out of this alive. That was all.

The world seemed to be crashing down around their ears; she had no idea why the sky was flashing like that, nor why these other memories were being forced on her, but she knew that did not matter, either. Looking at Bra's still sleeping form for one moment, she came to her decision.

Clutching the girl protectively to her chest, Bulma snuck out the back door with a simple goal: damage Gohan's ship beyond repair, and NObody was getting out of here.

So infuriated was she that it never occurred to her to slip inside with her not-daughter and leave herself; her only goal was revenge. Perhaps, in the end, it was for the best that she did so. After all, the prophecy had to be fulfilled, and that could not happen without certain stimuli; certain things had to happen to make the characters involved do what they were supposed to do, and Bulma, whether she knew it or not, was one of them.

Of this, Bulma neither knew nor cared. As Ru Sa, all unaware, gloated under the flickering sky and had fun with his ki staple device, Bulma worked with clenched teeth on the other side of the building and viciously tinkered with Gohan's machine. She was going to get revenge. And woe to the person who tried to stop her.


	28. Reunion (2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Why won't you just DIE", indeed.
> 
> It's getting real, yo.

**Part One: Cumber**

_Grand the gain and gauge the loss -  
Emptied soul must last chance toss.   
For choices still then must be made -   
loyalty or good, the price is paid;  
And result determines Black's dear cost,  
To survive - burned must be the dross. _

* * *

Cumber woke up to the thin, chilling sound of Reep panicking; he also awoke to the dull, throbbing feel of a splitting headache. Grunting, he reached up to touch his head gingerly, wincing at the grittiness of dried blood in his hair and on his fingers, and opened his eyes.

It was terribly dark in here. Fortunately, Cumber's body was still Kyuujinshu, and he could adjust his eyes with fairly little difficulty; his surroundings came into focus almost immediately.

Great. A cave. Somehow, they'd fallen into a freaking CAVE. Cumber winced as Reep continued to panic. Now, if only he could turn off his _ears_....

Reep was leaping up and down, making frantic sounds and failing to communicate anything effectively. His abnormally large eyes were larger than ever, and his exceedingly short fur was all sticking up on end; apparently, Reep was scared out of his mind. Cumber sighed.

"Reep," he said, struggling to his feet, trying and failing to catch hold of the small creature. Reep kept jumping, panic unabated, and avoided his grasp. "Reep," he tried louder. "Ree - "

He stopped as his boot made contact with something - something heavy, sort of soft, and not a rock by any stretch of the imagination.

Reep abruptly stopped jumping and stared at Cumber with eyes that seemed to be trying to eat up his whole face. "HIKARI TRUNKS INJURED!!" he wailed as Cumber looked down.

Trunks lay between them, face-down in the dirt and not moving.

"Oh, no," Cumber said quietly, and knelt. Trunks was unresponsive to his touch; Cumber gingerly picked him up off the floor, all too aware of the limp and colorless condition of Trunks' body and face, colorless except for the startling slash of red stemming from a wound high on the boy's forehead. In the bare, gray light it looked like tribal war paint.

Cumber was no expert, but it seemed to him that it took a lot of damage to reduce a Saiyan or demi-Saiyan to this condition; he ruefully wished for a regen tank, not knowing how else to treat Trunks.

Reep watched without comment, having made the transition from panic back to silent mystery now that Cumber had given his attention to Trunks. The effect was eerie; air seemed to be circulating somewhere up above them in the cave, and the result was a little too much like slow, heavy breathing for Cumber's peace of mind.

"We have got to get out of here," he intoned wisely, hugging Trunks to his body and standing. He could see no exit of any kind, although the furthest angles of walls and ceiling were too far away for him to make out distinctly; whatever cavern they were in, it was absolutely huge. There was SOME small light in here, certainly - Cumber could make out Trunks and Reep fairly well; but it seemed to be sourceless, and as such, was pretty much useless to him. Cumber cursed softly under his breath and turned to look at Reep.

"I don't suppose you know a way out of here," he said, still using his characteristically quiet, thoughtful tone of voice; after all, there was hardly reason to panic _yet_.

Reep did not answer. He _was_ panicked, and with very good reason, although it was not something he would have been able to explain to Cumber. Reep had searched his memory and discovered a large blank; he was unsure how they had gotten in the cave. He was unsure how Trunks had been hurt. He was unsure what the others were doing up above and how his presence down here would affect the Prophecy.

This meant more than he could ever possibly express aloud; the fact was that Reep _always_ knew what was happening - at least, what was happening to himself. Even when he was asleep, his peculiar mind recorded events as they happened to _him_ , and so, in a very real sense, there was almost nothing that he did not know.

The fact that Reep did not know what had just happened meant that he had ceased to exist. There was no other explanation; he had actually _ceased to be_ for the space of a few minutes - or hours, or days, or seconds - there was no way to tell. The only way he could cease to exist would be if the Black touched him, but it had NOT; which meant that something else was going on about which he did not know.

Panicking, and reacting quite naturally, he reached out to her who had been his silent companion since they were created at the dawn of time: Gai. Speaking in waves of communication so high as to forgo words completely, he expressed his panic to her in one brief thought.

 _Did not exist,_ he sent in her direction, his awareness of Cumber's curious glance fading only slightly as he concentrated. Her response was hardly reassuring.

 _Yes. As did My Self,_ she agreed, no discernible emotion in her thoughts or tone.

 _But how can this be?_ he sent back, feeling the urge to bound in panic once more welling in his system.

 _The alteration of the Black,_ she replied, stoically as always.

 _Alteration?_ he asked, knowing what she meant but not how it applied to this situation; meanwhile, Cumber gave up getting an answer and started probing along the walls for an escape route.

In a flash, Gai explained to Reep what she knew. The tears... the rips in space that were left behind as the Kyuujinshu time-jumped had caused the Black to mutate its form and change its function entirely. It was no longer merely content to obliviate, but now also to rip, to pull, twist, and forcibly mingle remaining worlds together in its path as it went. It was destroying all in the long run more thoroughly than it ever could have done unaltered.

Add to this the fact that Reep was unique - and Gai was unique. They alone existed in ONE timeline, with no other versions of them anywhere else. Most of the beings who were already in this world were mirrored in others, and as this forced mingling took place, they were literally fused with the other versions of themselves - absorbing new memories and actually BEING more than one at once.

She gave Reep an example, one that was currently happening up above ground. Vejiita was abruptly having to absorb into his soul the acquired lifetimes and memories of several alternate versions of himself at once. Simultaneously, he would BE all of them - Vejiitas on earth, Vejiitas in space, whatever Vejiitas happened to exist in the worlds which the Black pulling together at that time. And since Mirai no Trunks' world was the point of entry through which the Black had come, It was somehow treating this world as the senior, superior one; the other Vejiitas would eventually fade, and this present Vejiita would be left alone again, as a single soul - but with the memories of a dozen other different lives.

It gave him no permanent harm; the event might leave him dizzy, weak, and possibly in need of therapy, but not seriously damaged.

For Reep and herself it was an entirely different story.

There were no other versions of these two. None other, alive or dead, in all of reality - and so, as the Black forced timelines to merge, Reep and Gai had merged with NOTHING. During those temporary moments, they simply ceased to be, as if they had never existed. Gai then fell silent, having answered Reep's question and explained the situation to her satisfaction.

Reep was horrified. This changed everything; if the moment came to call on Gai and there was no Gai... or Reep needed to act, to affect something, and he was not even in existence to do so...

This made everything bad. For the first time in his considerably long life, Reep looked around him filled with the mute horror that the Prophecy _would not come to pass_ \- and he felt utterly helpless in this fear's wake.

Cumber glanced back at him again, his expression almost kind; the creature looked about ready to pass out from pure fear.

"It's okay, Reep," he said quietly, still holding Trunks carefully and feeling along the wall. "We'll get out of this somehow. You'll see." Great kami, he was sounding like Gokuu; Cumber couldn't resist a small smile as he continued to run his hands along the stone, looking for openings.

Reep didn't answer, and Cumber paused again in his wanderings to look at him. Perhaps _passing out from fright_ was an understatement. Reep was so tense he looked like he was ready to keel over. Not keen on the idea of Reep dying or exploding or whatever else his species did when scared witless, Cumber tried again to start conversation. "So why did you call Trunks 'hikari' Trunks?" he said. "Doesn't 'hikari' mean 'light?'"

Reep heard; and after a moment's pause to get his mind functioning on the level of verbal conversation once more, he took the time to answer. After all, this was a subject on which Reep was well versed.

"The shining one. Oh, yes," he sing-songed, concentrating hard on the question at hand. "Hikari he is, for he has tasted the Light and bears it in him; he is the reflection of all that is _not_ him, of Kuro Trunks, who walks above and makes all stop being Real."

Cumber worked this out in his head. "Other Trunks? 'Kuro' trunks? Kuro means, ah, 'dark' or 'black,' doesn't it?"

Reep nodded.

Well, this was interesting; apparently, there was some logic to Reep's train of thought after all. Cumber waited to see what other amazing things he would say, but he waited in vain. Reep said no more; apparently, his moment of lucidity had passed.

Cumber sighed; he did not have time to deal with a panicking what's-it. He had things to do, Trunks was injured, and he HAD to get out of here. He had been in worse situations than this and had come out of them okay, so this oughtn't to have been such a big deal; the really strange thing was the way he felt his heart changing inside.

He supposed it had something to do with hanging around Gokuu; whatever it was, it made him feel a sense of care toward Vejiita's eldest child, a concern for Gokuu and the others up above him, and a quickly deepening loathing for Ru Sa's less than moral method. Perhaps it was this same odd difference that had caused him to help Trunks and release Gokuu in the first place.

Cumber's mind did not go far enough in this process to realize that he was turning into a "good" person; all he knew was that he found himself changing, and that he liked it. This doing-stuff-for-other-people-just-because-they-needed-it thing was growing on him by leaps and bounds.

Gokuu would have been proud.

However, before Cumber's thought process could take this idea any farther, something amazing happened. It was at this point that Gai did something she had never done before: she began to take matters into her own hands.

"GAI!" Reep abruptly shrieked, causing Cumber to jump and spin around. Reep raced right past him to a wall - from which, Cumber now realized, the dim light was coming.

"Gai is awake!" Reep continued, bounding in front of the wall as though building the courage to throw himself against it. "She moves! She hears! She sees! Early, she is, but she is AWAKE and does what she will!"

"Huh?" said Cumber, having no clue what Reep was talking about - and then he stared in blank awe as the wall behind Reep began to shimmer as though it were a reflection on the water.

"Oh, OH, it is TIME! SHE AWAKENS!!" Reep shrieked in answer, practically apoplectic in joy, and he stood back. Cumber continued to stare as the light emanating from the wall began to grow brighter, and then to add to the festivities, the room began to shake.

"Reep, what-"

"Behold mortal," said Reep, still thrilled mindless but somehow seeming more... _noble_... than he had a moment before. "Behold, and remember, for now you now behold she who contains eternity in her one wish: Gai, the third dragon."

Cumber shouted in confusion and shock as the brilliantly bluish light poured over them both, nearly blinding him and almost burning his skin. One thing, however, he caught before his vision left him completely, and he remembered it for the rest of his life as one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

Trunks, in his sleep, smiled - and looked completely at peace.

And so began the final phase of the Prophecy.

* * *

Moot was terrified. Not only that, but he was alone, cold, and utterly without clothing.

When the sky had started flashing and everything went mad, he had finally decided that freedom won over dignity and scooted backwards until he was free of his robe, which was still pinned to the ground by that rather large piece of Junsei Aion. Then he had scrambled away as quickly as he could, and hidden around the other side of the building just in the nick of time; Gokuu, Gohan, and Vejiita had been slammed to the ground only moments after. He hid there for a while, huddled against the wall and trying not to make any noise, even though he was so scared he wanted to cry; it sounded like Ru Sa was doing some truly awful things over there.

He felt abandoned. Forsaken. Of course, he did not know that just to his left Bulma was busily tinkering with Gohan's time travel machine - and just to HER left the Namek party, with Dende in the lead, was doing its best to keep ahead of Kuro Trunks. All four groups maintained their relative positions around the building, and none were aware of the others.

As for Reep, Hikari Trunks, and Cumber - they were nowhere to be seen, and it scared Moot very much. He stayed where he was, trying not to bawl or shout or do anything stupid, and really, really hoped he would not be left alone here forever. To be trapped in this place with no one else alive but Ru Sa would make him go mad - and as far as he was concerned, that was a fate worthy of his worst nightmares.

Almost as an afterthought to his fear, he wondered where the eighth dragon ball was. He felt guilty because he had lost it, even though it was not entirely his fault; and it was that guilt that made him peek around the side of the building just in time to prevent total disaster.

* * *

Vejiita woke up slowly. He was only just becoming aware of the pain in his arms and the pain in his side when he was hit with yet another wave of other Vejiita-sensations - memories from a life not his, from a past he had nothing to do with, from a world or worlds he had never seen. They were truly bizarre; some of them had him still on Vejiita-sei, the planet whole and unexploded and himself crowned as king; some of them had him as a slave on Freeza's ship, still undergoing the horrid things he had there; some of them had him in places totally different, among people he did not recognize at all... _cat_ -looking people, and other weird things...

Vejiita shook his head hard and tried to come to. He became aware all at once that his arms were shackled, that he was apparently drooling, and that he could not wipe away the drool BECAUSE his arms were shackled. And then he became aware of something else.

"Good morning, bright eyes," said Ru Sa, and hit him in the face hard enough to nearly knock him back into senselessness. It was at that point that Vejiita realized, with an odd mixture of relief and disgust, that it was not drool on his chin, but blood. Ru Sa had almost whacked off his jaw.

Vejiita did what any healthy Saiyan would do in this situation. He spat the blood in Ru Sa's face and tried to escape.

The spitting, at least, was successful; his escape attempt, however, was not. The ki-staples, responding to Vejiita's energy surge, immediately hit him with bolts of power, shooting specially calibrated electricity that was designed to hurt and paralyze him all throughout his body. It did not stop until Vejiita stopped moving; and of course, Vejiita being who he was, he was nearly unconscious from pain by the time he gave up and hung limply from his bonds, panting like a medieval torture victim.

Ru Sa regarded Vejiita's shuddering, sweaty form, and said nothing. Nothing needed to be said; he had won. He'd gotten his humiliation in, and with Vejiita in hand he would have plenty of "fix" to get him wherever he wanted to go. Now, all he needed to do was to borrow whatever vehicle of transportation Gohan had used to get here (a vague image was in Gokuu's mind, and so Ru Sa had seen it; however, Gokuu, being who _he_ was, had been unable to provide any technical details). He ought to have left already, really; but he had wanted to SEE Vejiita come around in such a humiliating position, SEE the look on his face when he realized he was trapped, that he had _lost_ , that the mighty Vejiita had finally met his match and FAILED.

Vejiita coughed wetly.

Oh, this was just _too_ sweet.

Chuckling darkly to himself, Ru Sa removed the still-unconscious Gohan from the wall and slung him over his shoulder. He was going to make the boy tell him how to work the time machine, and then kill him; Ru Sa had learned his lesson about feeding from half-breeds.

"Be right back," he said almost sweetly to Vejiita, and walked around the corner of the house, Gohan's head lolling limply between his shoulder blades. Vejiita waited all of ten seconds after the captain disappeared before he began struggling again. He was discovering, to his growing irritation, that it was apparently impossible to flex one's physical strength without also flexing one's ki; however, Vejiita was determined to try anyway. He'd managed to give himself three or four good shocks when Dende made his appearance.

Panting, dirty, and very tired, Dende rounded the corner of the building and skidded to a halt, Bee close on his heels. The Nameks had split up in their attempt to divert Kuro Trunks, and Dende - who now had the eighth dragon ball - had been looking for shelter. The Junsei-Aion-coated Capsule Corporation had looked like a good idea to him, and so, splintering off from the main group, he'd headed there - only to find Vejiita stuck to the wall like old chewing gum.

Dende blinked. "Vejiita?" he said uncertainly, forgetting for the moment to look behind him to see in which direction Kuro Trunks was presently ambling.

Vejiita looked up. "Namek!" he snapped. "Get me out of this! Now!"

Dende stared for one moment more before coming forward. He then put the dragon ball by his feet and started trying to figure out the ki-wraps.

"How did this happen? Was it Ru Sa?" he asked, ignoring the insulting looks Vejiita was giving him and prying steadily at the right-wrist ki wrap.

"No. I did it myself, just for fun. Stop asking stupid questions and hurry. He's coming back, and you don't want to be caught here unprotected, Namek."

"My name is Dende," Dende muttered a bit, and managed to free Vejiita's right-wrist. "You KNOW my name."

"Enma Daiou will know your name in a minute if you don't hurry, fool," Vejiita responded half-distractedly, glancing back toward the way in which Ru Sa had gone. Nothing was happening over there; nothing at all that he could sense, and it bothered him.

"Right, right," Dende replied, scowling slightly and prying carefully at the left-wrist wrap. Vejiita was scowling mightily; he still dared not move, or he stood to fry both himself AND the Namek. He was totally at Dende's mercy, and if there was one thing that Vejiita hated above all else, it was the feeling of being weak. This was not putting him in a good mood. Oh, he was going to hurt Ru Sa SO badly once he got a hold of him.

Vejiita's thought process took an abrupt turn as Kuro Trunks came floating slowly around the corner. Vejiita stared, the color draining from his face as he took in Kuro Trunks' dead expression, his black eyes, the wisps of black _stuff_ coming up from his skin.

"Dende! Move it! Untie me! Now!" he shouted, no longer caring who could hear him or what came of it. In Kuro Trunks' eyes was death, and it was a death that Vejiita did not care to face. Dende turned and looked. His eyes went wide.

"ACK!" shouted Dende, panicking for one moment and stepping backward. He managed to trip neatly over the eighth dragon ball and fall flat on his back, bumping his head; the dragon ball rolled languidly away from him and to within four feet of Kuro Trunks.

"Oh, you IDIOT!" Vejiita roared, and tried to free himself. Of course, he was immediately fried by the remaining three ki-wraps; the prince of all the Saiya-jin was really not having a very good day.

Dende shook his head dizzily and stared with horror as Kuro Trunks reached the eighth dragon ball. Merely acting on instinct, Trunks paused his forward motion and angled downwards to touch it, with no consideration for how this act would affect the rest of the Real.

"NO!" shouted Dende in a true heart-stopping moment of terror - and that's when Bee made his move.

Barking mightily and not even considering the danger, Bee ran at Kuro Trunks and leapt straight into the air, aiming for his enemies' face.

"Bee! No!" shouted Moot from the other side of the building, and ran toward them - but he was too late.

Bee leapt right at Kuro Trunks - and Trunks, responding automatically, grabbed him.

Within a mere second, Bee was no more; he was gone as if he had never existed. But his death had not been in vain - his distraction had provided the extra seconds Moot needed.

Sobbing as he ran, the little unclothed Namek made a mighty dodge and slide that would have made Yamucha proud. With inches to spare, he snatched the eighth dragon ball in his hands and rolled away.

Light immediately poured from the ball, momentarily blinding Dende and Vejiita and making them cry out in pain - but that was nothing compared to what it did to Kuro Trunks.

A sound came out of his mouth that was like nothing any of them had ever heard before; it was primal, inhuman, a high pitched screeching that no pterodactyl or scratched chalkboard could ever have produced. Dende immediately covered his ears, as did Moot - dropping the dragon ball. Vejiita could do no more than writhe at this point, able to cover only one ear as only one hand was free.

The moment the dragon ball left Moot's hands, the light went out.

Showing the closest thing to an emotion Kuro Trunks had yet, turned toward Moot with a look that could only be described as slightly lethargic fury.

"Moot! Pick it up again! Hurry!" called Dende, ears still ringing.

Moot stared for one moment, then dodged to grab the ball, just as Trunks began to lunge for him - and there was no question that he was moving more quickly than he had been a moment ago. The light came on once more, and Trunks stopped, grabbed his head and emitted that horrible, high-pitched sound. It was overpowering; Dende's very nervous system seemed to be trying to shake itself out of his body and dance away.

Dende was nauseated. "Moot... g... get aw... away..." he tried to say, and then with no warning, Kuro Trunks turned and stumbled away, all coordination lost, not even functioning well enough to fly.

The Black - such as it was - had been _hurt_.

Moot stared and then sniffled; Bee was gone - and that just was NOT fair at all. Dende stared after Trunks, his mind momentarily frozen by the enormity of what they had just done.

Vejiita stared for only a moment and then snarled to be let loose; _helpless_ was not a feeling that he was growing to like at all, and there was vengeance to be had.

Dende hurried to free him, not sure where Kuro Trunks had gone but knowing that he had to find the Chosen One and get him that dragon ball NOW; things were moving too quickly to make any more mistakes. Moot merely stood where he was and trembled, a little naked Namek appearing unutterably beautiful in the light of the eighth dragon ball.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the other side of the building, Bulma worked almost frantically on Gohan's machine, trying to disable it in a most permanent fashion and only caring about the small but suitable revenge she was able to get. Her womanly instinct was telling her that she was running out of time, and she had to _hurry_ \- so, she did.

Bra stood back a bit, very nervous. This was wrong; this was ALL wrong. Something was happening with her father and Mr. Gokuu and the rest of them on the other side of the building, but she couldn't tell what it was; something about the nature of this place screwed up her senses.

She was _aware_ of Ru Sa in the same way she was _aware_ of Vejiita and _aware_ of Gokuu - but she couldn't touch them at all or tell where they were or even what they were doing. Taking a step back from the woman who was not quite her mother, Bra peered into the dark; she had become very vaguely aware that someone was coming.

And then, a wonderful surprise; she felt Gohan's mind, sensed just the tiniest bits and gleamings of the consciousness that was unmistakably _his_ \- even though he presently was still knocked out. Her eyes lit up, and in her youth and naivete she did not stop to think how Gohan could be moving toward them when he was unconscious.

"GOHAN SON!!" she abruptly wailed, and disappeared toward the corner.

"Bra! What are you doing?" Bulma dropped her tools, not thinking, and ran after the child. After all, Bra belonged to Vejiita, and she had made a promise to keep her safe. She sped toward the corner, simply following the track that Bra had taken - and so received a most unpleasant surprise.

Ru Sa, inches from her, held Bra's feebly struggling form off the ground with one hand. "I'd forgotten all about you," he said dryly, dropping Gohan casually to the ground like a bag of rice.

Bulma gasped and slid to a stop.

Ru Sa smiled; and without another word, he hit her.

Bulma went flying backwards, not seriously hurt but definitely dazed, which gave Ru Sa enough time to sling Gohan back onto his shoulder and walk toward her and the machine.

"I don't know what's worse," he intoned as he tossed Gohan to the ground again, next to Bulma. "Saiyans who keep returning or humans who won't die. Perhaps both of you need to be taught a lesson." Casually, he spread them both on their backs and stapled their limbs to the ground, keeping Bra neatly trapped under one arm as he did so.

Bra was horrified. "Lemme GO!" she wailed, struggling for all she was worth and kicking and hitting whatever she could reach. She was landing blows that would have bent an adult human in half almost instantly; unfortunately, Ru Sa was not human - and he was still high on Gokuu's powers. That would fade soon enough, but for the moment he was all but invincible, and little-girl punches, half-Saiya-jin though they be, were hardly enough to be more than an annoyance.

"Oh, stop," he said to her irritably, and hit her on the back of her neck. It had the desired effect; she slumped limply, in his arms, quite unconscious. He regarded her for a moment before tossing her to the ground next to her mother. Beautiful child; he was probably going to take her with him, as well as her father. She'd provide some rather fine entertainment on the way, what with her young, supple body and her father's potential reactions to various things he could _do_ with her body.

Yes. That would be very sweet indeed.

Still moving with the thoughtful, self-aware grace of invulnerability, Ru Sa knelt over Gohan's body and proceeded to slap him until he showed signs of coming awake. His goal was to make Gohan tell him how to work his time machine so he could get out of here; however, he never got the chance to complete it.

A high-pitched, inhuman screeching sound came within hearing range from somewhere behind him, around the southern edge of the building. Having no clue what it was, Ru Sa turned around to look.

Still stumbling somewhat in pain, Kuro Trunks came around the corner, holding his head and making that awful sound. Once he came within sight, he stopped stumbling and stared. Resuming his blank, unfocused expression, Kuro Trunks lifted slightly into the air and started moving toward them.

Ru Sa's eyes went wide; it took him all of one second to decide that torturing everybody took a second position to running for his life, and sending a panicked blast at Trunks for distraction's sake, he lifted up and took off without a backwards look - leaving Bra, Gohan, and Bulma utterly helpless. Bulma, the closest to conscious of the three, stared at what was left of her son for a moment, and then started screaming.

Trunks absorbed Ru Sa's blast without reaction or comment; his mother's screaming seemed to make no difference to him. Blank, gaunt, expressionless, he began moving toward the three people on the ground.

* * *

Bulma's scream carried as well as Kuro Trunks' screeching had; Vejiita, his clothing still smoking a bit from the last ki-wrap jolt he'd received, was already heading around the corner when its harsh sound reached his ears. He stopped, scowling. Right behind him, Dende paused as well.

"Was that Bulma?" he asked hesitantly, trying not to look at the harsh angles of Vejiita's face in the light of the dragonball. He looked beautiful, cruel, and utterly cold - and in that light he was scaring Dende very, very much.

"One of them," Vejiita answered evenly, still scowling, and without another word he lifted into the air and headed around the corner.

"But the... Wait! Oh, GAH!" emoted Dende, who promptly turned, grabbed Moot around the waist, and ran after him, the purifying light of the eighth dragon ball bouncing along the path and lighting the air brilliantly along the way. At least SOMEbody here seemed to be thinking.

* * *

Everybody was gone when Gokuu woke up. Feeling old, pained, and weaker than he ever had in his life, he stressed and strained his body until he was able to roll himself over onto his stomach. From that position, the first thing he did was sob; his wife was gone, his youngest son was dead, and now there was nothing he could do to recover them. He understood in a vague, intuitive, Gokuu-ish way that the universes in which they had died were no more, and as such, it was impossible to bring them back.

Still shuddering, he pushed himself onto hands and knees and sobbed one more time. His arms and legs were shaking dreadfully, but Gokuu refused to fall; he still possessed the will to push himself beyond what he ought to have been able to do, in spite of his body's utter lack of power. Vaguely aware that Vejiita and Dende had moved to the other side of the building, he pushed himself back onto his knees and weaved, physically trying to stay upright and fighting to remain conscious. Unfortunately, this was not so simple; his ki was all but gone, and his body had been robbed of its youth and seemingly endless strength. Merely keeping his head away from the ground was a gargantuan effort of will; it seemed to have almost a magnetic pull.

 _Perhaps there's a higher gravity now,_ he thought dazedly to himself, and that was when Cumber found him.

Still carrying Trunks and wearing a look on his face of complete rapture, the weary Kyuujinshu stumbled his way above ground and toward Gokuu at once. Dropping to his knees beside him, Cumber angled Trunks into one arm and touched Gokuu's shoulder by way of greeting.

Gokuu took a moment to respond; getting enough breath to speak took some doing.

"Cumber," he wheezed without looking, a little surprised at the odd, unused timbre of his own voice. Unable to say more for the moment, he resumed his labored panting.

Cumber did not answer. He could not; his soul felt so filled peace and an utter unbelievable _joy_ that even thinking in words was impossible. He merely knelt where he was, breathing as if to mimic Gokuu's tired breaths, only a bit faster. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.

Gokuu turned and looked at him, moving his head carefully so as not to lose his balance and sprawl. His skin was as tired and colorless as his hair, but his eyes had lost none of their sparkle. In his present, joy-shocked condition, Cumber thought dazedly that Gokuu's eyes were the most wonderful things he had ever seen - except, of course, for Trunks; but HE was the chosen one, so there was the reason for _that_.

Gokuu smiled slowly, ignoring the way his dry skin threatened to crack on his face. "You - you're different," he panted, still-sharp eyes taking in all Cumber's details.

Cumber swallowed. "I've seen eternity," he said quietly, his eyes huge and slightly moist. He held Trunks closer to his chest and forced himself to speak again. "Where is the dragon ball?" he asked, still trembling and unable to stop panting.

Gokuu blinked at him, bright eyes shocking in his old, old face. "I don't know," he admitted. "But I think Moot or somebody has it on the other side."

Cumber started to answer, and that was when Trunks finally came awake.

The young man moaned softly and stirred, just a bit. Wincing, he reached up and gripped his forehead, looking a little pale and still quite dazed; and as he came awake, something truly incredible started to happen.

He began to glow.

Gokuu stopped his labored breathing and stared, amazed at what he saw. Trunks, in his semi-conscious state, was exhibiting no control over the light that now dwelt in him as a visible representation of Jouten's direct power. His nearly deity-like purity was manifesting by itself.

"He... he's so beautiful," Gokuu panted, and Cumber was about to answer when they were both interrupted.

"Why won't you just DIE?!?!" Ru Sa roared, and with no more conversation sent a very large blast of ki at the three on the ground.

In that split second, three things happened at once.

Trunks, his ki-sense flaring, came completely awake. He was suddenly very aware that he was going to die - and that he had not yet completed his mission.

Gokuu automatically tried to summon the power to fight back, to resist, to protect - and found that he could not. In that split second, he realized the crucial difference between savior and prey: the trait of being _unable_.

And in that split second, Cumber did something that he would never have dreamed of doing even a day before. He simply absorbed the blast and channeled it back at Ru Sa.

Taken by surprise, Ru Sa was nearly injured. He reacted at the last moment, taking it head on and absorbing it carefully.

"Get out of here," Cumber breathed, and let Trunks roll out of his arms and onto the ground. He stood, eyes glued to Ru Sa. "Get OUT!" he said again, and took two steps away from Gokuu and Trunks. He understood now; he knew what he had to do.

He had to be a distraction until Trunks could get safely to the eighth dragon ball.

"But - " started Gokuu, and Trunks, who had now become sharply aware of the presence of the eighth dragon ball on the other side of the building, simply picked up Gokuu's frail body and took off.

Ru Sa let them go. His eyes were glued to Cumber, his expression a study in blazing, quiet, fury. A moment of silence passed.

"How _dare_ you," he said to Cumber, the oddness of the air here making his voice carry now where before it had not.

Cumber did not answer.

"You half-class bastard _traitor_ ," Ru Sa hissed and seethed. "How could you DO this? _I_ have always been faithful to us and ours," he sneered, and sent another blast at Cumber - this one calculated to be so big that re-directing it would drain Cumber's energy considerably.

Not knowing his ploy nor being a fighter at heart, Cumber simply responded the same way, absorbing the blast and sending it back at him.

Ru Sa smiled; the idiot was playing right into his hands. Fool had never had much fighting instinct... in fact, Cumber was one of the Kyuujinshu who was _different_ enough to alert King Vejiita so very long ago and get them banished from the planet of the Saiya-jin.

"We are the last, Cumber," he said, reverting to their native language - a language that should, by all rights, have been dead for thousands of years. "Why do you do this and betray the last?" As if not waiting for a response, he sent a second large blast at Cumber.

Cumber deflected it, panting now as he did so. He had been well over a week without a fix, and this was tiring what little reserves he had. But that was okay; his purpose was not to survive here, anyway. He was here to distract, and he knew that as well as he knew his own name. There were tears in his eyes as he answered.

"I don't think you can possibly understand, Ru Sa," he answered softly in the same language. "I love, now." A simple statement, and honest; however, he seemed to understand how very corny that sounded without context, and so, he smiled; slowly and knowingly - a solemn, and somehow ageless expression.

Ru Sa stared; he had known Cumber for approximately two thousand years, and he had never seen him smile like that. He had never seen _anyone_ smile like that. And so, like most sentient beings who encounter something they do not understand, Ru Sa felt a sudden upsurge of hatred and disgust for Cumber; any possible vestiges of mercy that might have been there because of long association were gone. Abruptly deciding that he didn't want to play with Cumber as much as he had a moment before, Ru Sa bared his teeth and fired, again and again and again, wearing Cumber's strength down so he could drain and destroy him utterly.

Cumber took it. He fought back as much as he could, which wasn't very much altogether; forming his own ki blasts only drained his weakening energy more.

His ending is not one that should be dwelt on; it was noble, brave, and very, very quick. He died with that odd, knowing smile still on his face - which fact utterly infuriated Ru Sa, nearly to the point of madness; it robbed him of the feeling of _victory_. Even draining Cumber did not remove that smile, and when Ru Sa got away from him and headed back toward the other side of the building, he was somewhere beyond furious and dancing on the edge of insanity.

Chive's formula had indeed been something special; it had, as Ru Sa felt, made him twice as strong has he had already been and given him more health and abilities than he had had in centuries. However, it also had had a terrible side effect; it sent his metabolism into overdrive, which meant that he was experiencing serious detriment to his mental and emotional control. As Ru Sa flew after Gokuu and Trunks, keeping well off the ground so as to avoid Kuro Trunks, his capacity for logical thought was rapidly diminishing, being enveloped in a sense of anger that was approaching bestial levels. In fact, he hardly felt afraid any more of anything - not even Kuro Trunks.

He closed in on both versions of Trunks, Gokuu, Gohan, Bulma, Vejiita, and Bra, unaware of Reep behind him and Gai far beneath, and unaware that with his movement the crucial members of the Prophecy would be altogether - and they would enter into its final and most unstoppable stage. Nothing was going to stop the End now.

And under the ground and bathed with light, Reep writhed in the joy of Eternal and waited, for soon Gai would rise, and he with her - and everything would then be all right.


	29. Goodbye, Revisited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, great loss is the only way to edge us forward.

**Part Two: Gokuu**

_Pure of heart, and pure of will;  
making sleep and slumbers still.  
Slumber not, to 'venge, to die;  
rage is pure as love is high._

* * *

When Ru Sa finally came around the corner, he found an adventure already in progress. Smiling coolly, he settled on top of the Capsule Corporation to watch.

* * *

From Bulma's point of view, Kuro Trunks seemed to exhibit no effort as he destroyed what she had left of Gohan's machine; for a moment, she was more furious at the fact that he was destroying her carefully laid trap than she was that he was going to kill her. Her death was one thing. Robbing her of revenge was entirely something else.

Immune to such motherly outrages, Kuro Trunks continued to move forward, and in a moment her self-preservational instinct reasserted itself. She resumed her screaming.

Backlit by the approaching Moot-borne dragon ball, Vejiita floated regally around the corner and touched lightly to the ground. He paused for one moment to take in the scene, including such details as Bra's obvious state of unconsciousness and the helpless condition of Bulma and Gohan. Narrowing his eyes and looking like a silhouetted god of death, he lifted into the air again and zipped toward this twisted version of his son.

Kuro Trunks never saw him coming.

"Look out!" Bulma screamed, terrified that Vejiita would meet the same fate as Gohan's time machine. Dende finally came jogging around the corner just in time to see Vejiita bodily ram into Kuro Trunks' back, sending him flying over his intended victims to sprawl face first in the dirt. To his definite fortune, Vejiita had failed to come into contact with any of Kuro Trunks' skin.

"Don't touch his flesh!" Dende cried, panting a bit from the effort of carrying Moot and the dragon ball in front of him as he ran. Vejiita nodded once - and slammed into Kuro Trunks again, before the younger man could lift himself off the ground. He then hovered a few feet above Trunks' body, watching him carefully and deciding what to do next.

Dropping Moot, Dende knelt quickly beside Bulma and started to untie her.

Vejiita saw Kuro Trunks start to push himself up onto his hands and knees, and decided abruptly just what he wanted to do. Hair blazing gold for just one moment in an up-flash of ki, Vejiita dropped like a stone directly onto the center of Kuro Trunks' back.

Trunks' spine gave way with a surprisingly loud _snap_.

Bulma, sitting up now because her hands were free, found herself furious at Vejiita for killing her son.

Vejiita observed Trunks for one more moment, and then stalked toward the others. Bending smoothly at the waist, he pulled Gohan's arms free and then started to scoop Bra up. He was marginally surprised when Bulma touched him.

Sniffling and trembling, she reached up and touched his cheek, not really able to help herself. "You... you killed him," she said, her voice shaky with emotion.

Vejiita stared for one moment. He blinked. And then he callously reached up and slapped her hand away.

"Don't touch me!" he snapped. "Your son was already dead. I just put the corpse out of commission, and you are not MINE!"

Dende sighed and thought unflattering things about romance as he continued to revive Gohan. Vejiita was obviously making definite distinctions between _his_ Bulma and _this_ Bulma - and it was just as obvious that _this_ Bulma was not. Dende shook his head and concentrated on Gohan. As if they _needed_ any more complications right now.

Moot was staring with his mouth open - but not at the small scene before him. He was staring at Kuro Trunks, who seemed to be not as out of commission as previously thought.

Trunks' body seemed to _warp_ \- to sort of bend and wobble, shifting in ways the humanoid body was never meant to move, and a moment later, he stood up - his back apparently healed. And with a frightening speed he had not shown before, he spun around and flew straight toward Vejiita.

Moot screamed. Vejiita turned in time to see Trunks coming, and he reacted by leaping to the side, shoving Bulma in the opposite direction so as to ensure her safety.

Kuro Trunks ignored her completely; angling perfectly in mid air, he lunged for Vejiita, both hands outstretched and no expression whatsoever on his face. The hand he held toward his father seemed to be losing its shape and its color; it was turning smoky and black.

"Don't let him touch you!" Dende cried again, falling back and out of the way. Vejiita did what he said, falling back to avoid Kuro Trunks' rapid movements and having no chance to react; the young man was moving at the absolute top speed his body could reach, and Vejiita could only avoid him by going Super Saiyan level two and dodging like mad. He watched carefully for an opening to attack.

It was at this point that Hikari Trunks and Gokuu came around the corner. Hikari Trunks stopped as he saw what appeared to be two blurs zig-zagging all over the remains of the Capsule Corporation's front lawn. He stared.

"What's happening?" he shouted, putting Gokuu gently down against the wall and rushing to help with Gohan.

"I don't know," Dende said, moving to stand beside Moot. "But for some reason he's focused on Vejiita. I have a very bad feeling about this." Then he yipped and ducked as Vejiita and Kuro Trunks zoomed right over his head. Impossible as it was, Kuro Trunks seemed to be gaining.

Abruptly, they both stopped moving. Ten feet away, on the ground, Vejiita had gripped Kuro Trunks' arms by the wrists, over the cloth of his jacket, and was engaged in a battle of strength with him. Trunks' goal seemed to be to touch Vejiita no matter what, and he steadily ignored the light from Moot's dragon ball, even though it was actually making his skin smoke.

Trunks pushed closer, unaffected by Vejiita's expression and voice. Looking into those eyes sent bursts of cold fear into Vejiita's soul and waves of nausea through his abdomen, and Trunks' strength was greater; inch by bare inch, Kuro Trunks' hands were coming closer.

Gohan chose this exact moment to awaken. Blinking dazedly at the sky, his eyes focused on the Canopy - and then at the pair of legs hanging over the corner roof of the building above him.

"Hey," he said dazedly, pointing. "Who's that?" Everyone looked up, including Vejiita.

In that moment of distraction, Trunks touched Vejiita's face. But instead of disappearing, something else seemed to be happening; a black, shapeless cloud rose from Trunks into the air, and angled toward Vejiita in a rough arrow shape as though to stab him.

The Black had chosen a new host body.

Vejiita screamed, experiencing pain he had not even felt in hell when he'd died; and at that moment, three things happened all at once.

Hikari Trunks shouted and raced toward them - only to find himself abruptly confronted with Ru Sa.

"Hello, Vejiita's son," said Ru Sa, his eyes gleaming, and without another word attacked him, forcing him back and away from Vejiita. In the process, he delivered a clean kick to Gohan's head and knocked Dende down. He grinned; _this_ was fighting the way it was meant to be, fun and completely unfair for the losing side.

Moot, desperate to help, ran toward Vejiita, holding the dragon ball high above his head and shouting. He had not forgiven this Trunks for the loss of Bee.

Its light hit Trunks and the cloud of black above him, and the cloud immediately lost its shape and started to disperse, unable to stand the purity of the dragon ball's light. That high-pitched screeching noise was now coming from the cloud itself, and responding to the pain, Kuro Trunks turned and slammed his foot into Moot's stomach.

Moot dropped the ball and went flying, very much unconscious. The light went out, and the cloud above Trunks began to resume its pointed shape.

Vejiita, still paralyzed, continued screaming; he dropped to his knees, unable to remain standing.

With no warning and horrifically bad timing, more of the Black reached this universe at this very moment. Thoughts and actions paused all around as forced mental fusion occurred with every single character there, and all screamed or grimaced or cried as _other_ memories became their own.

In particular, this event hit Bulma. She chanced to absorb into herself that soul which belonged to THIS Vejiita and Bra - the Bulma _they_ knew; and in that moment, she knew more than the agony and angst than she had ever known in her life.

She felt love. True love for them, for these two people, because she _knew_ them, and would give anything at all for them in the world. She knew what it was to live with Vejiita for years on end, to give birth to a daughter, to see Gokuu and Gohan grow up and see a world not ravaged by ill fate.

And then it was over, and Bulma was left as only herself again; only herself, alone, without hope, without family, and she felt such misery at being her _self_ that for a moment she was unable even to cry for the pain.

Bra stirred, responding to the fusion, and woke up.

She stared at Bulma, feeling more than one soul in her own body, the same as everybody else. Then she looked toward Vejiita, still feeling confusion all around and knowing perhaps better than any other the horrific pain her father was experiencing.

"Papa?" she asked, upset, and Bulma's previous moment of indecision ended.

Bulma was not used to being in the thick of things; in fact, since the last of the androids had died, she had not been directly involved in adventures at all. Everything here had happened so quickly up to this point that reacting in any helpful way seemed useless; but in this one moment, she saw one thing she could do.

One thing that would infuriate Ru Sa.

One thing that would help Vejiita, whether she was _his_ or not.

One thing that would hopefully take that unhappy look off Bra's face and reassure her that her mother loved her.

And one thing that would finally take away all her pain.

Without another second of hesitation, she ran at Kuro Trunks full out, screaming what could only be described as a war cry as she did so. Angling her shoulder halfway down his back, where Vejiita had done the most damage before, she slammed into Trunks with all her might, knocking him over and away from Vejiita. The cloud that had been forming above him immediately retreated back into Trunks' body.

Dazed, Vejiita fell backwards.

And still merely reacting, thinking only of possessing Vejiita and nothing else, Kuro swung his fist once and broke Bulma's neck.

She did not even have time to cry out.

Bra saw her die, and screamed bloody murder.

Ru Sa paused in his beating of Hikari Trunks to look back, and he smiled.

"I guess the bitch got what she deserved, didn't she boy?" he said conversationally, and continued fighting him to the backdrop of Bra's hysteria.

Vejiita merely stared at Bulma's body. The fact that she was gone was simply not registering. And always one to stick to business, Kuro Trunks stood and stumbled toward Vejiita again, ignoring her corpse, still determined to make the switch. The cloud formed above him once more, angling in a spear toward the stunned Saiya-jin prince.

During all of this, Gokuu could barely move. He had never experienced weakness like this before, and it upset him nearly to the point of tears; it seemed he could do nothing at all but watch, and his heart ached with pain because of what was happening around him. He looked at the dragon ball, which had come to rest next to the stunned Vejiita. He glanced at Hikari Trunks, at Kuro Trunks, at Bra, and at Vejiita - and he suddenly thought that perhaps there was something he could do, after all.

Pressing two fingers to his forehead and concentrating very hard, Gokuu vanished from his present position and reappeared between Vejiita and Kuro Trunks - and right in front of the dragon ball. Grabbing it with shaking hands, he held it up between himself and Kuro Trunks.

Light immediately began to pour from the ball - light that was even brighter than that which had been generated by Moot's touch.

Kuro Trunks stopped; he _had_ to stop. The barrier of light that had sprung up when Gokuu touched the ball was too strong for him to penetrate, and in fact, formed a kind of painful cushion on all sides of him. Kuro Trunks was still bent on possessing Vejiita's body, but he could not move at all, neither forward nor back. So, he waited, as if he understood that he only needed bide his time until Gokuu lost his strength. Patience was definitely one of his virtues.

 _Vejiita_ , Gokuu tried, determined to break the paralysis that seemed to have frozen Vejiita's body. _Vejiita, you've got to do something. You've got to get the dragon ball to Trunks_. Gokuu could say no more right away; he was so tired that even this small effort was enough to nearly make him lose consciousness, and holding the dragon ball in the air was taking all his effort of will.

Vejiita blinked and turned his head but not his eyes toward Gokuu, as though listening; he was still staring blankly at the spot where Bulma lay, and ignoring Kuro Trunks completely.

Abruptly, everything came to a halt again as more worlds collided, forcing yet more mental fusion and confusion; and this merging was much more violent than before. The Black was nearing its end, and once it completely met with itself in a whirlpool-like circuit throughout reality, everything would end. The amount of alternate universes left - even in bits and pieces - was beginning to diminish greatly, and this lessened what Gai would be able to fix.

She could not create. She could only put together whatever was left - and in another few minutes, there would BE nothing left.

Everything seemed to freeze, nearly torn apart by this final fusion; there would be no more after this.

End game had begun.


	30. End Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Endings aren't always bad.

**Part three: Vejiita**

_Ice with fire's heart, flame never still -  
twice perished, thrice cherished - strong, the untapped will.  
Rage rules over the night and makes day;   
Anger must dry, love fade away.   
First - rage made whole, the bearer of life,   
Yet first to come is second in right._

* * *

Ru Sa was completely elated by the success of his revenge. He was thrilled as he physically damaged one version of Vejiita's son while another version threatened the life of Vejiita himself. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if he could have also brought King Vejiita into this, who had started all of this mess in the first place. Ah, well. One could not have everything.

Ru Sa was aware that he could no longer leave; he was aware that the ship was gone, that there was no way out, and that he was going to die here - and he did not care. With Chive's formula racing in his brain, he was incapable of caring; he knew emotion, powerful and strong, and nothing else, and the intensity of it was nearly enough to drive him mad.

Perhaps that was why he decided to increase his already poignant revenge factor by making an startling admission.

Grabbing the rather sore Hikari Trunks by the throat, he lifted him off the ground and grinned at him merrily. Trunks, dazed, could do no little than swing in his grasp and try to pry Ru Sa's fingers off his throat, unable to breathe.

"You know, Vejiita," Ru Sa said conversationally, glancing back once to where Vejiita still sat frozen. "It really is ironic that it ends like this. I mean, I killed your woman, I nearly killed you, and I'm going to kill your son - even though he's already been rather stubborn about it. What do you think, eh? Ironic?" He drew Trunks closer, still grinning like mad, and delightedly continued his one-sided conversation. "I killed your mother _so_ easily, you know. All it took was a little poison."

He laughed, amused by the look of absolute horror on Trunks' face. Was _that_ ever an expression worth committing to memory. "It would have been so easy to cure her, too. Simple antidote. It was in our files, but you don't really think we'd go to all the trouble of _curing_ her when we'd gone to the trouble of _killing_ her in the first place, do you? That wouldn't make much sense, now, would it? Of course it wouldn't. And we are very logical beings." He beamed like a banshee, spat in Trunks' face and threw him to the ground.

Trunks coughed, rubbing his throat; he seemed to be trying to ask _why_.

Rolling his head from side to side for a moment as though to work out kinks in his neck, Ru Sa ignored him. Powering up to the very top of his ability - which, at this moment, drew even with Gokuu at super Saiyan level three, he continued with his self-absorbed monologue. "You do what you have to, you know. And right now, I simply _have_ to kill you. Pull your head off, something like that. It won't last long; no worries." And laughing joyously, he crouched as if to fling himself in Trunks' direction.

 _He's mad_ , Trunks had time to think, scrambling backwards - and suddenly, his view was blocked by Vejiita.

The Saiyan prince stood between Ru Sa and his son, staring at the captain with shock on his face.

Ru Sa paused. Slowly, he smiled patronizingly and straightened up, crossing his arms. "Have something to say, do you?" he asked casually, absolutely happy; Vejiita had come out of his self-induced trance, and that meant more fun; two Vejiita-family-members for the price of one. Oh, how _nice_.

Vejiita continued to stare at him. "You... you killed..." he managed, and Ru Sa answered before he finished - no use wasting time here, after all. Kyuujinshu were efficient as well as logical.

"Yes," he said, and waited.

"You could have... she could have..." Vejiita seemed to be having difficulties with the rudiments of speech; perhaps Kuro Trunks had given him brain damage.

"What, lived?" asked Ru Sa, and uncrossed his arms. "Of course she could have. Would have been easy. Easy to cure her - but do you want to know why we didn't?" He leaned closer, well into Vejiita's personal space and enjoying the look the shorter man was wearing, the sweat on his face, the wideness of his eyes - 

Oh, _delicious_.

"We didn't because she wasn't necessary to my plan. And in fact - " Ru Sa announced, one finger in the air. "if she HAD been alive when we'd gotten there - why, there's some chance you wouldn't have come, wasn't there? If she had decided not to come with us - well - I have the feeling that you would have stayed on earth too. Isn' that right, Vejiita?" And he chuckled deeply, impressed with his own twisted logic.

Vejiita blinked. "You killed her just because you wanted me to go into _space_?!?" he shouted, shaking visibly.

"Of course," glibly remarked the captain. "After all - you're as whipped as they come." He smiled, thoroughly enjoying his _coup de grace_ and unaware in his current state that what he was doing just might be dangerous. "You weak, pussy-whipped, half-breed son of a bitch; burdened with love for some pathetic, weak version of female from another species. You should be _glad_ we killed her for you," he hissed, and waited to see what Vejiita would do.

He only saw half of what he expected.

Vejiita made a choking sound. His eyes focused somewhere off to the right away from Ru Sa, on the spot where the other Bulma lay. This could have been _prevented_. Bulma was dead and it could have been _PREVENTED_.

Vejiita was not thinking clearly. His strained emotions were finally and too late making connections between _his_ Bulma and _this_ Bulma - only now, they both were dead and completely out of his reach.

He made the choking sound again. Recalled, strangely, Bra's birth - how Bulma had borne a second child for him, not seeming to mind that he never told her he loved her, never complaining or even seeming to care that he had never so much as given his word that he would stay, that she was his mate, that he would be there for her for the rest of her natural life.

She'd known, anyway. And now she was dead.

Coughing, Hikari Trunks looked back and forth between his father and Ru Sa. He did not know what was going on, only that his father looked as though he'd just been stabbed - and Ru Sa was smiling and loving every minute of it. And then, Trunks finally spotted the light of the eighth dragon ball. He inhaled slowly, in awe.

Gokuu held it up still, his teeth bared and his entire body trembling with the strain of keeping it airborne; and in its holy light Kuro Trunks was still frozen. He could not go forward, he could not go back, and because of this, he was unable to chase after Vejiita. Hikari Trunks was only half aware of that last detail.

The dragon ball. The eighth dragon ball. _There it was_ \- within sight, if not quite within reach. He had to get it, had to touch it, had to _hold_ it in his hands and do... whatever it was he had been so specially prepared to do.

Falling forward onto his stomach and ignoring the pain from Ru Sa's beating, Trunks began to drag himself toward them.

Vejiita abruptly threw back his head and roared. As he did, perhaps unsurprisingly, he transformed into Super Saiyan.

 _Oh, GOOD_ , thought Ru Sa, eager for the upcoming and expectedly satisfying fight and not noting Trunks' movement away from him. He was barely able to contain himself to let Vejiita have the first move as it was; it would be more fun this way, with at least a marginal challenge, and -

Hm. Something odd seemed to be happening here.

"Trunks!" cried Gokuu, out of strength and no longer able to keep up his barrier. Falling forward, he dropped the dragonball and sprawled in the dirt, shaking physically from exhaustion. Freed from the paralyzing light, Kuro Trunks immediate began moving toward Vejiita again.

"Oh, no," Trunks said, and started crawling faster.

Vejiita spiraled passed Super Saiyan one; he hit Super Saiyan two, his previous peak of power - and did not stop there.

Bulma - the only thing he could see in his tortured mind was Bulma, giving birth to Bra, not complaining, never complaining - and the only thing he felt was rage.

Power poured out from his body in a torrent, strong enough in its initial rush to knock Ru Sa back a couple of feet and making up for the loss of light that occurred when Gokuu dropped the dragonball. Abruptly his hair seemed even taller than usual, more spiky than it normally was and long enough that it actually started arching _downward_ from the peak of its crest.

Ru Sa blinked.

Vejiita stopped roaring and looked at Ru Sa, veins popping out everywhere, his normally prominent eyebrows nowhere to be seen. In his fury, he had reached Super Saiyan level three - and he was not even aware that he had done so.

"Whoa, Vejiita," Gokuu breathed quietly, unable to speak any louder.

"You _die_ ," Vejiita pronounced quietly, and flew at Ru Sa.

 _Good kami, does he have a lot of hair_ , Ru Sa thought dazedly before getting hit - and then, he was surprised to find himself on the _defense._

Vejiita's power had grown even with his own.

Bra, who was indirectly the impetus for her father's transformation, did not notice any of this. She knelt over the body of her almost-mother, no longer sobbing but still upset beyond belief, when something more mundane attracted her attention.

"Do you feel that?" she asked of nobody in particular, and looked at the ground. The eighth dragon ball shuddered and rolled a few inches away from her, responding to the vibrations going on beneath it. Bra could not have known, but this sudden odd quaking was caused by two powerful and unrelated things: Vejiita's transformation, and Gai's increased awakening underground as Trunks drew closer to the dragon ball. The female dragon was actually thrashing in her eagerness to come out.

Gohan, responding to the power surge of Vejiita and Ru Sa's fighting and feeling the shaking of the ground beneath, awakened again; and for once, there was no one nearby to knock him out.

"What the - " he started, sitting up, and then things entered an entirely new level of madness.

The Black had all but reached its full circle, and in the process was actually beginning to draw in on _itself_ , like a giant whirlpool; the speed at which it had been moving was affected, and it changed its _modus operandi_ yet again.

Instead of merging things, it began to merely crush them altogether - fusion at this speed and intensity was impossible.

Bra screamed as things began to appear and disappear around her - animals, vehicles, people - and above her head, the Canopy started to crack and break into pieces under a rapidly changing sky.

"Bra, look out!" Gohan cried, and, lunging, knocked her out of the way. He was immediately buried in a pile of junsei-aion laced glass. Bra screamed yet again, horrified; Gohan was trapped. Bra did not or could not hear Gokuu's quiet assurances that everything was all right; he had lost the ability to speak higher than a whisper.

Vejiita did not seem to notice - and neither, all things considered, did Ru Sa. The only thing Vejiita cared about was killing him, and Ru Sa was hard pressed to keep him from doing so; he was beginning to grasp that Vejiita had finally crossed the third Super Saiyan level, and as such, he was equal - or perhaps more than equal - to Ru Sa himself. Vejiita fought with tears streaming from his eyes, seeing the image of Bulma giving birth in his mind over and over again, frenetically working out every possible angle of attack before Ru Sa could possibly do it. His mind had gone into a kind of purified overdrive.

He was beating the captain back, and Ru Sa was beginning to realize there was nothing that he could do to adequately compensate. As he fought, desperately now and in real fear for his life, he lost the concentration required to maintain his Saiyan form, and began lapse back to his original Kyuujinshu appearance. He no longer looked to be Saiya-jin at all; his skin was completely white, his angles all too sharp, too _flat_ , and his eyes were almost completely black. He fought with his teeth bared, frothing, and looking absolutely mad.

Everything within sight seemed to be wavering, like a moving reflection in a bad mirror. Hikari Trunks stumbled and fell, his already shaky balance thrown off by the increased shaking of the ground and his perception of reality bending, contorting, stretching as though it were going to rip and break.

And then Bra, the only person left standing who had not been in Reep's prophecy and who had no purpose in Reep's mind, made her move.

"Trunks!" she cried, bending to pick up the eighth dragon ball. "Catch!" and she threw it.

The eighth dragon ball sailed through the air in a perfect arc, and Trunks, on his knees, caught it.

Gokuu managed to cheer quietly, which no one could hear; and almost everything, at that moment, froze.

_Half - becomes what Jouten would have be -  
Death to death cause, end of Nothing see._

Trunks screamed as power surged up all around him, blowing his hair back from his face and obscuring him almost completely. His body felt as though it were exploding; such _life_ and intensity as was triggered by his touch was almost too much to bear. Either his purity was going to tear him apart, or this light was. Not, at the moment, that he cared.

_Brings light into darkness, gods' only hope;  
Time's end, worlds fend; death - quicksilver rope._

In that moment, he was suddenly aware of Gai, and only Gai. Nothing else mattered; not his father, not Ru Sa, not Gokuu who was still cheering quietly to himself, nor Gohan nor Bra nor even his own existence.

He was aware of Gai, and he understood what he had to do.

"Gai!" he cried, shouting the name that meant _song of victory_ at the top of his lungs and forcing himself to his feet. "Gai! Come forward!"

The ground increased its shaking so much that it was nearly impossible to remain upright; Trunks only did so literally because the power of the dragon ball he held kept him in stasis.

"Oh, Trunks," said Bra quietly, and she began to cry as she fell to her knees. She had never seen anything so beautiful.

Trunks grimaced and cried out, straining to keep his body from flying into tiny pieces. Behind him, Kuro Trunks stopped in mid-flight toward Vejiita. He turned, facing Hikari Trunks with a look that could almost be described as interested. Stretching out one hand, he made as if to approach Trunks instead of Vejiita - and then, he paused. This new light from the dragon ball was too much; there was no way the darkness within him would be able to stand it, and Kuro Trunks faced a serious moment of indecision; the instinct to possess the most powerful being available versus something very close to self-preservation.

It was too much; the Black inside of him could not take it.

 _Half is light that rages, only pure of heart -_  
Be sufficient then to break apart the Beginning  
of End; whole, then, must move to make whole the part. 

Kuro Trunks stumbled back from his counterpart, in pain and needing to get away, desire for existence overriding any and all other instincts. However, he did not get the chance to escape.

There were still a few Nameks left on this planet, although they were somewhat injured and mightily confused. Most of them had died in the ensuing opening of the ground and the breaking of the Canopy; however, the four that were remaining came running up in time to see Kuro Trunks stumbling back from his illuminated counterpart as though avoiding poison.

They saw the light, and saw his reaction to it; and in less than a moment, they had a game plan.

With no more than a quick glance for communication, they flew as a group directly into Kuro Trunks' back and heaved him toward Hikari Trunks and the light.

Kuro Trunks screeched horribly as he was enveloped in the blinding brightness, and then it seemed that whatever was doing the screeching was slightly _removed_ from him, above, just beyond.

Moving like a bubble of oil in a glass of water, a large, amorphous blob of Blackness was forced out of his body and into the light, where it blurbled harmlessly for a moment and then evaporated completely. Kuro Trunks fell to the ground - Kuro no longer, and once again himself.

He panted. Shuddering and pained but _free_ , at long last finally _FREE_ , he looked up at the alternate version of himself with eyes that were once again blue and wept; everything was going to be okay now. He knew. He had just glimpsed eternity, and it was wondrous.

The ground far to the left of Trunks - he who had been dubbed Hikari by Reep, although such silly details did not matter now - began to crack and break up, large chunks of it falling into the huge caverns below which Cumber had discovered earlier. Nobody noticed that, but they certainly noticed what followed.

Gai burst forth from under the ground and into the air straight as an arrow, and the light that she shone pierced the pervading darkness and removed it completely. She was white, long, slim, beautiful, shaped in a slightly more serpentine way than Porunga had been; in fact, like Shenlon, she resembled the dragons that had traditionally adorned buildings and parade costumes of Asia for centuries uncounted.

And she made _song_.

Her tail, long and slightly flat, had holes in it of varying sizes and positions, and as Gai lifted higher into the sky, air whistled through her tail, making low, flute-like sounds that somehow penetrated even the tremendous noise Ru Sa and Vejiita were making. After a moment, it was obvious that it was creating actual music, minor in key and lilting, somehow encompassing hope and sorrow and defeat and triumph all at once - and at the same time, none of those. It was the song of she who had almost waited too long for her turn to awaken; who had watched centuries roll by without comment, who had one purpose in existence and who had had only Reep as a constant companion; it was the song of Gai.

Everybody stopped moving and stared.

Gai circled once, twice, thrice in the air, perfectly horizontal and twirling like a pinwheel. She settled above Trunks, vertical again, waving her tail lazily back and forth to continuing the music, and spoke.

"You are the pure one," she said, in a voice utterly beyond humanoid expression, making every living being there shudder violently. "You are the pure one of God, and I obey your command. You have one wish. Please - word your wish well." And for the first time, on those last words, her voice lost its complete calmness and had a just a hint of desperation.

 _Word your wish well_ , she'd said.

Trunks hesitated just for a moment; it was hard to speak as he listened to her song. Every time more than one note sounded at once, he felt as though his heart were breaking - with joy or sorrow, he could not tell. He was aware of the ground still shaking as if the planet was coming apart, aware that the Black had not stopped moving for the sake of his thinking processes, aware that the Canopy was still falling down in places around him and that he was running out of time. _Word your wish well_. He would only have one chance to do this right.

"Gai," he said, shouting almost automatically, making it _announcement_ in a way that his quiet nature had allowed before. "Gai," he started again, louder. "I wish-" Reep whispered in his mind, Gai sang her tail-song, and eerie nothing-silence reigned throughout everywhere else; the ground was still shaking, the sky was still breaking, and the Real was rapidly coming to its end. Gai slightly increased the tempo of her song.

"You can... you can do it, Trunks," said Mirai Trunks, panting still and weakened from such a long possession by the Black. "Do what... whatever you're meant to do." He could not take his eyes off Hikari Trunks; kami, he was so _beautiful_.

Hikari Trunks took a deep breath. "I wish," he announced, firmly, surely. He had to make this CLEAR. "I wish that you - " clear and concise and POSSIBLE, even for her.

"- would make everything be whole again."

The moment the words left his mouth, he _knew_ they were right - and he also knew that they meant something far more than he could possibly grasp.

Gai spun in the air, throwing off light and altering her song slightly so that it now entered into a major key. The sound of it was pure joy, unrestrained victory and passion and pleasure and LIFE in a music that would never end, MUST never end, or leave its hearers forever wanting.

"IT IS DONE!" she said - and then began to do just what he had asked.

She made the Real - ALL the Real - whole.

There was a nearly physical jolt as Gai began by moving everything at once into the Original timeline - that timeline which was whole, uncorrupted, and could not be tainted, even by the Black.

The moment she did so, the Black ceased to exist.

It was almost anticlimactic, the way that happened; it was there one moment, and gone the next, never to exist outside of those deepest hells again - but it was impossible for Gai to move on to her next task without preventing further destruction of the little that still was.

She then proceeded to do what, in essence, the Black had started to do - but she did it seamlessly and causing a balance that the Black could never have achieved. She began to fuse all remaining Realities together.

All people remaining in all the bitterly worn scraps of alternate timelines she began to mold together in a way similar to the Black's - but this molding created continuity, peace; in a moment Vejiita, Gokuu, and everybody else were filled with ALL remaining alternate versions of themselves, and they felt _complete_. Whole. Not shaken and shattered, not pained or miserable or suffering loss. It was right, and harmony; it was balance.

Mirai Trunks disappeared into his purer counterpart with a smile, tired and weary and glad for the chance to live his youth over again - to do it RIGHT, with no loss of innocence along the way for the sake of power or gain. For this Trunks would now have all the acquired wisdom of himself. Mirai Trunks fused with himself with a sigh of joy and relief - or perhaps, release.

Although no one could hear it in all the commotion, Ru Sa abruptly started screaming. The captain was maddened now by Chive's formula and only vaguely aware anything around him. His lungs seemed to be burning, and his mind was on fire. He would have given much at that moment to be free of that pain, to get away from it, have peace, healing, something...

Then it was over. The pain stopped, and it took him a long moment to come back to his senses and realize he was still alive. Not only that, he was _sane_. He had fused with himself in this dimension the same as the others had, but... something seemed to be different.

He was nowhere near earth.

Ru Sa looked around, clueless as to where he was, until he spotted a very strange sort of mountain range off to the right; it was distinctive, formed in a large, V-shaped pattern by the ragings of Oozarus some hundred years before. Ru Sa knew that because he had seen it before. Panicked, he stood up and looked around, trying to place where he was, what was around him, what was going on...

A moment's observance confirmed it; he was on Vejiita-sei. The planet Vejiita, whole as it was before Freeza destroyed it.

Only it was empty.

It was a _dead world_ , as though Freeza had decided to merely wipe the surface clean without blowing up the body of the planet itself.

There were no buildings. No plants. No people. Nothing at all but the dust and those very distinctive mountains. Ru Sa was trapped - exactly, and perhaps ironically, the same way he had trapped all those Nameks, on a dead planet, with no way to get off, no communication, and no food. He shouted to the empty sky, helpless, hopeless - and for the first time in his life, regretting to be alive.

It could never be said that Gai did not have a biting sense of humor.

Meanwhile back on earth, Bulma's corpse which had been dead stirred as several different essences of Bulma entered into her body from a dozen different sources; in a moment she was gasping for air, sitting up, a look of total disbelief on her faced because she was _alive_ , she was _whole_ \- and she felt no more loss at all.

Gokuu sat up slowly, his youth and power mysteriously restored - perhaps a gift of Gai for he who had been so faithful - and looked around in amazement. People were appearing as if by magic all around him now, popping back into existence because although they had ceased to exist in THIS timeline, they had not ceased to exist in others. "Ooooh," he said as he saw Yamucha flash into existence, Mr. Satan, Mr. Popo, Tenshinhan -

Perhaps Gai was not completely unaware of humanoid experiences; she dropped Chi Chi, alive, whole, and well, practically into Gokuu's lap.

"Chi Chi!" he cried, and grabbed her up quite fast; and so, celebrating, both were completely unaware of anything that followed thereafter.

The land and sky seemed to be undergoing the same transitions as the living beings around them; trees and grass appeared, flickering for a moment as though on an ancient movie projection screen, and then solidified as Gai took what was left and put it all together.

The flashing in the sky seemed to grow brighter, quicker, and then a completely inexplicable thing occurred. Something like a band of light - all colors contained it its girth - stroked rapidly across the sky in one long wind-shield wiper arc of movement, raining something that could only be described as sparkles down on everybody's heads.

Bulma looked up, laughing, as these things rained down; playfully, she tried to catch them on her hands. But they were fleeting as snowflakes, disappearing the moment they touched her and leaving a slight, pleasant tingling in their wake. Still smiling, she turned and looked for Vejiita.

Gai began to cry out, still in that low, soft voice that penetrated the very mountains of rock beneath them, and thrashed back and forth. She was coming to the final stage of Making All Whole, and it was straining even her very considerable powers.

Buildings and cars and trees and animals and plants and EVERYTHING seemed to flash around them, flickering in and out, never containing the quite same amount or quality of people and things that had been on this world before - but somehow, it was _better_. Gai was holding nothing back; she was blending all that remained of reality together at once, and striving to only let the _best_ be the base for everything. All the world as it flashed seemed younger, cleaner, more _right_.

Vejiita had moved so far as to reach out toward Bulma's shoulder, his movements slow and trance-like, unable to speak - and then Gai demanded attention once more.

Everything stopped flashing; everything settled, solidified, and the pure and new sun was blinding and the air smelled so _sweet_.

"It is finished!" she cried, flying into the air and circling once more; her color had gone ashen gray, and her size, it seemed, had dwindled - but that may have been because she had never been seen in the light of _day_ before, with green grass beneath and blue sky above and good KAMI the air was so _sweet_.

"Done! The wish is fulfilled! IT IS DONE!" And with this final announcement, the eighth dragon ball abruptly flew out of Trunks' hands and into the air. It hovered there, motionless, and Gai twisted and spun around it, moving faster and faster as she circled it in a perfect pattern.

And suddenly, she changed her angle and flew _into_ the dragon ball, head-first, and disappeared.

There was a huge _bang_ \- as if the mother of all firecrackers had gone off, or perhaps a giant had just dropped his rock collection onto a wooden floor. The eighth dragon ball, colorless now and without pattern, fell unremarkably to the soft and springy grass and moved no more.

There was a moment of complete silence. And then - the first bird ever started to chirp for the very first time.

The many people gathered there could do nothing but stare around them, unable to speak or even think in the wake of such wonder. Butterflies darted about, and off in the distance some version or other of Satan City gleamed in the sunlight, perfect, whole, untarnished by pollution or wear. And then, Bra saw her mother.

"OKAASAAAAAAAAN!" she cried at the top of her lungs, and ran over to where Bulma was still seated.

This Bulma was younger; younger even than the one that Bra had known, for she encompassed _all_ Bulmas, including ones born later. Vejiita still stood where he was, one hand reached out as if to touch her shoulder. He appeared to have gone back into shock.

Trunks abruptly moaned and fell over; Bra beamed at her mother and then ran over to Trunks, whom she gently pushed into a sitting position, trying to rouse him. Vejiita blinked once, then finally managed to put his hand on Bulma's shoulder.

"Woman," he said, and very gently, very slowly, reached up to brush her cheek with the back of his hand. He held it there for a moment, then turned away without another word to tend to his son. And that was okay. Bulma had seen the tears in his eyes, and she knew what they meant. She looked inanely happy as she followed him, kneeling over her son with pride.

Gokuu was still hugging Chi Chi; he had been doing so, eyes closed, since the moment she had appeared. Now, he finally looked around.

"Hey, what happened?" he said, blinking at the sunlight and everything that had so _many_ bright colors.

Chi Chi just sobbed and clung to him again; she had lost her husband before, and had no intention of so much as losing sight of him again for a very, very long time. "Gohan!" she cried. "Oi! Where are you?"

"Gohan," said Piccolo quietly, nodding once at the young man - who was, at present, very busy looking for his wife and daughter.

"Piccolo!" Gohan said, giving his teacher a well-meant half-hug, still looking for Pan and Videl. "Have you seen - " he spotted them, and darted off; talking with the sensei would have to wait.

Well, that was all right, too; Piccolo was very proud of Gohan just now, anyway. He _knew_ that the boy had done something crucial to fix everything, and nobody would ever be able to convince him otherwise. Not that anyone would be very inclined to try.

Goten raced passed him, diving for his parents with a mad joy and unutterably thrilled to be alive again; growing up could wait. Not being dead was definitely better.

Dende sat up and looked around, absolutely dazed. "Wow," he said, and that was when he heard his name - sort of.

"Oh, the-wonderful-Kami-that-is-Dende!" Reep called, bouncing happily toward him and seen - for the first time ever - in full daylight.

Dende stared with wonder; there was nothing grotesque or absurd about Reep's features at all. The little creature was _odd_ , no doubts about that, but he was beautiful too, in a way that couldn't be described, in spite of his cuteness, in spite of the weird proportions and too small head and eyes that took up fully half of his face.

"Look!" Reep cried. "Look at happy reunions and wonder - oh, Gai is very good, very good indeed!"

And indeed, beyond Reep, a very interesting reunion was taking place; it appeared that Bee was unable to decide who got licked the most. He bounded happily between Moot and Mr. Satan, who both looked to be in the peak of health - and, fortunately for Moot, fully clothed. Mr. Satan had his legs and his sanity and seemed to be quiet all right.

And beyond them -

Dende suddenly scrambled to his feet and pointed, looking very upset in the bright, bright sunlight. "What are you doing here?" he snapped at the large, hulking figure standing silently beyond Mr. Satan - the figure who, of all things, appeared to be clad only in a jacket wrapped around his waist.

It was Android Fourteen. Fourteen ignored him completely, looking around in a quiet, emotionless sort of way; and without another word, he took off.

Dende stared after him, his mind making calculations, taking in what Reep had said, the wish that Trunks had made, the -

Oh, dear heavens. EVERYTHING that had remained in ANY single reality had been returned? But that meant -

Oh, my. Buu - evil Buu - could be back. As could Hildegarn, Freeza, Broli, or any of the other numerous nuisances that had bothered them all in the past. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear...

Dende realized he was saying that out loud when a small Namek he had never seen before tugged gently on his robes and tried to get his attention.

"Why are you saying 'oh dear,' papa? Whatever is the matter?" the little Namek said, and Dende felt a decided wave of dizziness coming on. Oh, DEAR.

"So EVERYTHING is back?" Bulma asked Trunks, confused.

"No - just everything that was _left_ in the timelines that the Black hadn't completely destroyed. I... I think Gai somehow merged them all into one. More stable that way, or something," Trunks answered, still looking pale and exhausted but better than he had. The imprints of stars from the dragon ball were burned into his hands, and they would serve as a permanent reminder of the vessel he had been.

Bulma considered this. "Gah," she said. "How many timelines WERE there? What do you think, Vejiita, was this the right thing to do here or is it just going to make things more confusing, I mean considering that - " she stopped, finally seeing that Vejiita was staring at her. He looked with no comment, casually holding Bra in his lap in an unmistakably _fatherly_ fashion and not looking away. Never looking away - it seemed he simply could not get enough of her features.

Bulma gulped and forgot completely what she was going to say.

Trunks shook his head with a small smile and looked at the grass; he had knowledge that he could not share, _dared_ not share, for it would be too much. He knew too much already; he had more that glimpsed eternity. For a time, he had been IN it.

Everything was different now, he knew; the worlds had all been combined, and while new timelines might end up breaking off again, right now there was only one. Somehow, though, he doubted that there would ever _be_ more again.

There would be many new things in this world - some that had never been seen by most of those present, and some known by all, if slightly different. After all, who knew how many snippets of dimensions Gai had had to tie together in order to create one that was whole; she had certainly left nothing out. There could be old friends and enemies here, forgotten things, powerful things, things that no one could understand or ever WANTED to see in this life.

But there could be beautiful things too; and knowing Gai and what she had done, he was sure that was the case.

One other thing, he knew: there was no more Black. Not in this timeline, and nowhere outside of the lower hells; even if it got loose again, it could never spread and destroy the way it had. This world was too much for _it_.

There would never again be a need for the eighth dragon ball or Gai, and that made sense; it had had only one wish available - just one, and fortunately, he had not messed it up. Trunks had to wonder, only briefly, about the mind that had laid that dragonball and that dragon aside so many eons ago, the Mind that he had only touched only so superficially when he was being made _pure_ , and had in fact been imbued with part of Jouten's very essence.

That essence was gone, now. He felt like weeping; he felt almost _empty_ without it.

But then, as he looked around, as he watched his father look at his mother and cradle his sister with a love he knew papa would _never_ show on purpose, as he watched Gokuu and Chi Chi, Goten, Gohan, Videl, Yamucha, Tenshinhan, Kuririn, and dozens of other people and random Nameks he did not know walk and talk and shout happily at each other and embrace and rediscover themselves, as he watched ALL of this, shuddering with his brief inner glimpse of all of life -

He was grateful. And he was actually glad - because he knew they would never _need_ the eighth dragonball ever again.

Smiling, he snatched Bra off his father's lap and started tickling her; the sound of little-girl giggles was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard right now, and besides' he suspected his father would be wanting to have his hands free for other things soon.

One person alone stood separately from the rest; and that was Cumber.

He was not sure why Gai had brought him back; he understood that she had, and he _was_ grateful - but it was very hard. He was alone, kinless, friendless, and he had lost Chive - an odd thing, which for him was very hard indeed. He had loved her.

He watched Bra almost distractedly, wondering just how much of Chive had gotten into the child, and thought almost bitterly that it would have been nice of Gai to bring back Chive, too. At least it would have, for him.

A hand on his shoulder startled him very badly. Cumber whirled around, fist raised awkwardly in a frightened instinct for self-defense. Gokuu grinned and raised both hands, smiling, a harmless interruption.

"Ohayoo, Cumber," he said gently, beaming full-out at the Kyuujinshu.

"Um, hi," Cumber said, looking down as though guilty for something.

"We were just wondering if you'd like to come and stay with us for a while," Gokuu pressed on, apparently unaware or unconcerned by Cumber's uncomfortable expression. Chi Chi clung to his chest, safely under his arm, and smiled at Cumber. For the first time in her life, she really had nothing to say. "Reep thought it would be a great idea," Gokuu continued. "And I'd like you to, and then you can get to know Bra better over a really long period of time, and - "

Cumber stared. "Get to know... what?" he interrupted, taken aback.

Gokuu shrugged. "Well" that's what Reep said. I don't know what he's talking about, do you? Something about being complete, and waiting until... um, something comes to fru...ition, or grows up, or whatever. So - you wanna come?" Gokuu beamed again, his body language considerably more expressive than his words.

Cumber stared.

"You think he's going to go for it?" Dende asked Reep, peering down from his post on Kamis' lookout.

"Oh, yes," said Reep, bounding wildly on the edge and fear of heights be damned. "He must go, for his is the chosen seed, and his will be in the making - " Reep abruptly fell silent and continued to bounce, smiling in a most sly and devious way.

"Reep, what are you talking about?" Dende asked, sitting up and letting his legs dangle over the side, unable to ignore the giggling, playful sounds of his child - some version of him somewhere along the line had had a CHILD, and that child was in the background now, playing with Mr. Popo.

"Oh, nothing," Reep said, and promptly hopped away to join with Dende's child and Mr. Popo in play. In a moment, his oddly formed speech and odd laughter joined in with their own.

Dende was silent for a long moment, watching everything on earth being sorted out, and getting into contact again with the vast myriad of gods - elder and otherwise - that had previously been in charge of this universe and were again. He thought about what had just happened, the fact that it seemed to be over, and then - well, then he changed his mind. Smiling, he stood.

"No, it's not over," he said quietly, speaking aloud and with a soft, wise smile on his face. "No - this adventure has just begun." With that, he turned and went to properly meet his child, the boy called Nai, who was his in another time and was his now.

Happily, Dende played the afternoon away and pondered no more.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all! This fic gained traction on ff.net and might have languished there forever if DragonessEclectic hadn't reached out to me.
> 
> (Thanks, Dragoness.)
> 
> So here are the only notes you need: 
> 
> 1\. This was pre-DBS, so none of that is referenced.
> 
> 2\. It was post-GT, but we do not mention that abomination in this house.
> 
> 3\. I did my best to keep this accurate to Toriyama's DBZ timeline, but eh. Does time even matter, these days?
> 
> 4.There is an embarrassing amount of fangirl Japanese in here. Sorry about that. I promise it won't interrupt your reading too much.
> 
> 5\. I think that's it. Enjoy, and may this crazy tale inspire more love for this truly excellent anime/manga and its fantastic characters.


End file.
